


Hunter and the Prey

by TenSpencerRiedPlease



Category: Captain America (Movies), Iron Man (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Serial Killers, Bucky Barnes Has Issues, Bucky Barnes Needs a Hug, Dark, I Don't Even Know, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Inappropriate Humor, Like a lot considering he serial kills in his spare time, M/M, Tony Stark Has Issues, Unhealthy Relationships, like seriously don't date you local serial killer, messed up humor but its there!, or darker than my norm anyway
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-05
Updated: 2019-03-09
Packaged: 2019-10-22 16:46:08
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 15
Words: 48,494
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17666318
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TenSpencerRiedPlease/pseuds/TenSpencerRiedPlease
Summary: Steve wrinkles his nose at Bucky’s board. Its most of his roomnow, with strings connecting all the dots and yeah okay he’s starting to look like an actual conspiracy theorist rather than someone with a slightly more than passing interest. “I don’t know how you can stomach all this,” he says and Bucky shrugs.“He honestly wasn’t that bad,” Bucky says, “conversation-wise anyway. I thought he’d be creepier.” Tony is smart, witty, sarcastic- if not for the circumstances Bucky would actually like the guy. Steve doesn’t look like he agrees in the slightest.“He’s aserial killer, Bucky,” Steve reminds him.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I wanted to try my hand at a serial killer AU and I think this is actually shaping up well so there's that. I figured I'd share, and hopefully y'all like it! Actually, considering this is pretty uh... dark as far as subject goes there's lots of good jokes! Not in this chapter but you know. In light of people thirsting after Ted fucking Bundy though do NOT date serial killers. Do not use this as a dating template.
> 
> That said, general warnings for an obviously fucked up relationship. I mean Bucky dates a serial killer, that's the whole premise. But there's also mentions of murder, a lot of referenced child abuse (not detailed), and a generally messed up feel. There's some humor to break it up but be aware of what you're walking into of course. I'll be sure to make A/N on each chapter (if needed).

Steve thinks his interest in crimes is weird and maybe a little unhealthy and hey, maybe he isn’t wrong. But Bucky has grown fond of conspiracies and crimes, a symptom of a car accident he and Steve were in in their late teens. Due to the sheer recovery time of having lost an arm he’d had nothing better to do than research and try and relearn how to function with only one arm. He’d spent months working through having to relearn how to do everything, physiotherapy, the normal healing process his body had to go through post amputation, the works. The event threw Bucky’s entire life off track and that’s fine because he’s managed to drag some semblance of normality out of this in the form of a PhD program that gives him the freedom to study what he likes most- crimes and conspiracies.

Granted he hadn’t originally thought _this_ was the direction he was going to go, but he’s happy to take coincidence where it comes and when he got the chance to interview Tony Stark, well. There’s a million things about Stark’s story that don’t add up, most of them revolving around why the hell a guy who had everything going for him and next to zero chance of getting caught randomly turned himself in with seemingly no motivation to. There’s a reason, and there’s a million theories about what that reason is, but Bucky doesn’t believe any of them.

Most are insane theories around some kind of government conspiracy but that makes no sense considering the victim pool. And Bucky has tried hard to connect the victims to any kind of involvement with the US government as a precaution. Aside from a few high profile politicians being killed, though, the connection is nothing. Information on Tony though, he did his best to stay out of that and not because he’s uninterested.

The guards buzz him into the hallway where Stark’s cell is and he takes a deep breath, wondering what exactly a serial killer looks like in the flesh. Obviously he’s seen pictures, Tony had a rather active social life before he turned himself into the police and led them to a nearly impressive amount of bodies. More so, considering who he preferred to kill. And before that no one knew the wiser, at least that they know of.

There’s plenty of suspicion around Pepper Potts, Tony’s assistant previous to all this, but Bucky couldn’t find anything to suggest she was involved in any way with Tony’s crimes. By all means it seems that there were no compelling connections to Tony and his murder victims before he turned himself in. No connection to anyone in Tony’s life and his victims, save for two, either. Bucky wonders about that too, but in an effort to not jump to conclusions he stayed out of any information related to Tony specifically.

He wants to hear the story straight from Tony, then compare it to what everyone else already knows. Granted he hasn’t lived under a rock his whole life, he knows plenty about Tony Stark, but all of it is basic pop culture knowledge. He’s gone out of his way to keep it that way too.

When he gets to the cell he finds a chair sitting in front of it and he pauses for a moment before gingerly lowering himself into the seat. He allows himself a few seconds before he looks up and he’s surprised, though he probably shouldn’t be, to find Tony Stark staring back at him. He smiles and Bucky is struck by how genuine it looks, how warm. No wonder no one suspected him of being a serial killer. “What, scared? You shouldn’t be,” he says with a level of certainty that confuses Bucky.

“What, not your type?” he asks.

Tony looks him over and Bucky is stuck by his beauty too, how genuinely stunning the man is. That probably helped him more than his clear ability to fake emotions well. “Probably not, no.”

Probably? “So then you have a type,” he says, because his victim pool is more than large enough to wonder. There’s no connection anyone can draw between them all. Some were low life scum bags, others were upper class suburban moms who’s worst crime was probably yelling at cashiers, and everyone else was some variant in between. No connections on race, gender, religion, political affiliation, family status, nothing notable.

“You’re not that stupid, don’t play like you are,” Tony tells him, a flash of irritation making its way across his features.

Great, he’s managed to piss off a serial killer in five seconds flat. “Guess that explains why you agreed to this. You’re bored,” he says and there’s a brief moment when Tony looks surprised before he smiles.

“‘Course I am sweet cheeks, I’m in fucking prison. Don’t even get a cell this pretty most of the time,” he says, gesturing around. “Guess this is my new Hilton.”

“Whose fault is that?” Bucky says, letting it sneak out accidentally. But it’s true; Tony’s the one who put himself here through his actions and confession.

Tony raises an eyebrow, “bold. I like you. Most people pussyfoot, that bores me.”

Bucky laughs but there’s not much humor to it. “Is that why you lead them around in circles?” Because it’s what he’s been told Tony would do from everyone that he’s spoken to that’s also spoken to Tony. Police, guards, a couple of professors at school, and on one occasion a very exasperated FBI agent. It hadn’t been information he wanted but people felt compelled to hand it to him, obviously annoyed that they hadn’t been able to crack Tony’s case. Well, further crack considering Tony cracked his own case.

“Pretty much,” Tony tells him bluntly. Well, Bucky thinks, he’s pretty sure he’s gotten further with Tony than anyone else has. “Out of curiosity is anyone else listening to your recordings of these sessions?” Tony asks, grinning when Bucky looks surprised. “I’m not an idiot, and also I can see the tape recorder in your coat pocket.”

He looks down and sure enough there it is. “No one else is listening, but my transcripts will obviously go to my PhD supervisor.”

Tony nods, “well then. So what leads you here, exactly? And don’t answer curiosity; I already know I’m a sideshow. Didn’t need to be a serial killer to be entertainment, really, I’ve always been the life of the party,” he muses, waving a hand around almost delicately. It’s almost shocking when Bucky considers the way he killed his victims and his methods are all different too. Some were beaten to death; others suffered various kinds of torture. One guy was starved, fed only just enough to keep him alive and its estimated that he’d been alive for _years_ like that before Tony let him fully starve to death. Of all the gruesome methods Tony used that had been the one to make Bucky lose his appetite.

Why he’s here, though, that’s a more complicated story and something- a gut feeling maybe- tells him Tony will appreciate honesty. “You weren’t my first choice,” Bucky says, “I have more of a fondness of conspiracies than crime. I was originally set to write about how and why Jewish people became targets of conspiracies but then, well, you know the rest because you signed off on this,” he says.

Tony snorts, “you should be a politician, you’re good at talking without saying anything at all. Your reason?” he asks, eyebrow raised.

Its not like the answer was _lacking_ but fine, if Tony wants the _details_. “I already know the story of how and why minorities become the targets of conspiracies- fear. People have written a lot on it. You though? I’ve got no idea what your motivation is, why you did the things you did and there _is_ a reason. No one with your amount of intelligence and patience kills as many people as you do with no reason, even if that reason only makes sense to you,” he says. “And then you turned yourself in with no one on your trail? Seriously?” He shakes his head because that makes no sense to him or anyone else who’s studied Tony’s case. Its not as if Tony was choosing low profile targets either- the man was _bold_ in his choices. The fact that he didn’t get caught simply due to the fact that most of his victims were important upper class people is shocking enough let alone the rest.

“So I’m more interesting,” Tony sums up but Bucky shakes his head.

“No, you’re a better learning opportunity,” he corrects.

Judging from the look on Tony’s face it’s the right thing to say because he looks delighted. “So, you’re Jewish?” he asks and Bucky frowns, wondering how the hell Tony figured _that_ out. Tony just smiles, “I have seven PhDs and a personal connection to every one of my thesis projects. I’m guessing you aren’t a conspiracy, so Jewish it is.”

Bucky laughs, “I have a fondness for cryptids too, you have any Sherlock explanations for why that is?” he asks, raising an eyebrow. Though, in Tony’s defense, he is right about Bucky’s Jewish heritage. Not that he practices much, mostly just the major holidays, but it’s a part of himself that he does hold some pride in.

“Well, disabled people are more the subject of horror stories than cryptids so I guess you have that in common,” he says. Bucky doesn’t mean to flinch but he does- he’s probably too aware of how lacking in normality his body is. Children stare not that it’s their fault, really, but it still sucks. Sucks worse when adults stare. “I’m not saying I agree, but its not shocking that someone who’s sitting on the outside of normality is drawn to the monstrous. Little strange that you’re drawn to monsters of the human variety though, at least in a crime sense. And you weren’t the only person that wanted to talk to me, figure me out. But you were the one who made the most compelling case,” he says.

Bucky squints, “somehow I doubt that,” he says. Of all the people who’ve probably contacted him, and all the people he’s talked to, he doubts that the most interesting person Tony has run into is _Bucky_.

“No really. _You’re no hidden mystery with secrets locked inside- you’re well known for taking credit for your work. The answers are there; it’s just that no one has been smart enough to figure it out yet._ That’s inspired,” Tony says, quoting Bucky’s letter to him verbatim. That’s not creepy at all.

“Its true. There are pieces of the puzzle people haven’t put together yet and maybe you hid them or maybe they’re out in the open, but they are there,” he says.

Tony tilts his head to the side. “I hid under the radar for years, what makes you think I left clues to my motives?”

Bucky snorts, “you stepped forward, you gave a shocking amount of names and locations, and you’re telling me you didn’t also give a motive? You gave the cops _everything_ else, so you gave them that too. They just haven’t found it.”

“You don’t think I would have said anything without giving that up,” Tony states more than asks but Bucky nods. Tony grins, “that’s a leap no one else has made. Care to explain, Watson?”

“Doesn’t make sense that you wouldn’t. People want three things in a murder case- a body, a confession, and a motive. You gave the cops the first two, why would you bother hiding the third?” Why hide evidence Tony would, theoretically, think the cops would find anyways? That’s wasted energy and if nothing else Bucky has determined he’s efficient. Brutally so- literally.

“Maybe I just didn’t want people to know. It’s a personal thing, motive,” Tony says.

“Privacy from a guy who’s grown up in the public eye? You don’t know the meaning of the word.”

Tony raises an eyebrow, “and I distinctly remember you noting that you didn’t know much about me in your letter,” he says, eyes narrowed just a bit. Like he suspects Bucky is lying.

“I don’t, but I’d have to live under a rock to not know the basics. It’s like the Kardashians- I’ve never seen the show or kept up with the family but their presence is so pervasive I pick things up. Ultimately I know nothing about you, no one does. But I know what anyone growing up in America and hearing your name every day would.” Even before he came out with the serial killing Bucky is sure no one knew Tony, not really. Celebrities are idols, people that others like to look at and parade around like some kind of creepy voyeurs looking in on a real life play with no regards to the people in it. People know celebrities, but they don’t _know_ them. Tony is no exception, though he’s got more skeletons in his closet in a very literal sense than most.

His answer seems to relax Tony some. “Know when I built my first circuit board?” he asks and Bucky frowns.

“No, I have no idea. Should I?”

“You’d know if you kept up and I’m good at spotting lies. You don’t get as good at business as I was without knowing how to read people,” he says.

“Or that good at hiding the fact that you kill people as a hobby,” Bucky quips.

Tony shrugs, “they had it coming.” It’s a blasé statement, something he clearly believes and it really only makes Bucky more curious about what, exactly, motivated Tony to do pretty much anything he’s done.

*

Steve wrinkles his nose at Bucky’s board. Its most of his _room_ now, with strings connecting all the dots and yeah okay he’s starting to look like an actual conspiracy theorist rather than someone with a slightly more than passing interest. “I don’t know how you can stomach all this,” he says and Bucky shrugs.

“He honestly wasn’t that bad,” Bucky says, “conversation-wise anyway. I thought he’d be creepier.” Tony is smart, witty, sarcastic- if not for the circumstances Bucky would actually like the guy. Steve doesn’t look like he agrees in the slightest.

“He’s a _serial killer_ , Bucky,” Steve reminds him.

He’s not a moron, he doesn’t need the reminder. “I read over every single murder this guy committed, Steve, I’m not lacking in awareness of that fact,” he says. “But you’d never guess that talking to him.”

Steve snorts, “because serial killers usually have it written on their foreheads,” he mumbles.

Sometimes its true that people don’t notice, but that’s not always the case. “People have good instincts, Steve, usually you can tell when something is wrong. Like Peggy- she can tell if someone is sexist in ten seconds flat even if they’ve said nothing to indicate they are. Except in this case it’s more of a gut feeling that something is off. Given that Tony killed a shit ton of people one might expect for him to give off creepy vibes but he doesn’t.” He’s shorter than Bucky expected too, and lightly muscled, almost lithe. That’s not the build Bucky would have predicted considering some of his victims were like five times his size and there’s no evidence he ever got hurt killing people. He’d been a public figure for years- people would notice if he got in a nasty fight.

The victims were never drugged though, or at least no one could find traces of anything, which suggests Tony didn’t need the drugs to take his victims out. Bucky has no doubt he’s got the intelligence and medical know-how, he’d have to to pull off some of the shit he did, but it still leaves him wondering how the hell Tony could take down someone a foot and a half taller than him that outweighs him by two hundred pounds. That’s a feat even for the average genius.

“You probably just have bad instincts,” Steve says and Bucky snorts.

“Who’s fault is that?” he asks, grinning at Steve.

He rolls his eyes, “you chose to go save my ass in those fights, Barnes, don’t blame me.”

Yeah, but if he left Steve there he’d probably _die_ so did he have a choice really? And, contrary to Steve’s assumptions, his constant fights as a kid actually made him damn good at predicting how violent a person would get. The fact that nothing seems abundantly off about Tony is a surprise, maybe part of the charm, he’s not sure. He’s got his first impression, now’s the time to dig into what other people think and start comparing it to what he’s seeing. Something tells him a lot of the information he’s about to get into will be incomplete at best.


	2. Chapter 2

It shouldn’t come as a surprise but Tony fucking hates prison. He’s never liked being stuck in any one place or situation for a long period of time and prison is both at once, and he’s usually in isolation too. God knows he hates that more than most anything else about prison, but Bucky makes a point- he’s the one who put himself here. Bucky isn’t the first person to reach out, not by a fucking long shot, but when Tony read the letter he knew. No one has been able to put his motives together; some people have assumed he didn’t have one, and the way he kills? Varies so much people just assumed he was experimenting with techniques to entertain himself.

He suspects that some of that opinion comes from not knowing the motive behind his murders, and victims that have the obvious connections are somewhat rare. The reason most of them don’t share an obvious connection is mostly because people looked into their lives in death just as little as they had in life. In short, cops are fucking incompetent.

Some people are easier to catch than others so sometimes Tony would wait, see what happened if anything. Most times there was a fat load of _nothing_ happening so if the cops didn’t do anything _then_ he stepped in. He finds police to be useless and corrupt most of the time, always too willing to throw away cases that need more than a slight bit of digging. They might be useful every once and awhile but the large majority of the time cops are so incompetent it hurts to look at.

He thinks the same of the military even if he still loves Rhodey. Given that Rhodey hasn’t spoken to him since he turned himself in he thinks it’s safe to say that love is no longer reciprocated, at least not the way it used to be. But there are people, like himself, that are hard to catch, or who won’t end up in the system for various reasons- usually wealth- so he made more targets out of people like that. Apparently it’s made it more difficult for the police to locate the obvious connection between his victims but whatever.

That’s a story he knows well, how stupid people are and how they miss the obvious even when things are outright stated for them. There are people the police could ask that may very well give them the connection, but they either haven’t asked or, and he suspects he’s right here, they just didn’t give him up. He doesn’t really blame them for having more faith in him than cops who didn’t do anything- they’re far more willing to arrest the poor than they are people who can pay them off.

Bucky though, he walked in _knowing_ that the connection is there, that they just hadn’t found it and his mind… he makes leaps no one else has. They’re natural to him too, like these jumps are normal for anyone to make when Tony knows that’s not true at all. He’s read what Bucky is capable of, how he can take the smallest scrap of information and unravel a mystery with it.

The Quill Case, Bucky’s work was impressive and he had no resources and no real motivation aside from an obvious interest in the unexplained. What he did though, taking a truck leaving town- the _only_ clue he had and Tony wouldn’t even call it that- and tracking down a kid that had been missing for almost twenty years? That has to be one of the most impressive things Tony has ever seen. And it helps, he thinks, that he’s always had a soft spot for kids even if Quill is technically only a couple years younger than him now.

It’s the reason he chose Bucky over everyone else and the professors are pissed. Some PhD student over an expert? Blasphemous, but Tony doesn’t really give two shits what they think of that. Bucky is more equipped to figure this out and Tony has always drawn a special kind of joy from watching people learn. He’s never been one to deny a learning opportunity and Bucky said it himself- Tony offered him more to learn from than his original thesis plan. As for Tony, well, prison is boring. He wants entertainment before he takes his leave.

“You’re good at putting on a show,” Bucky tells him in place of a greeting as he sits in the chair in front of Tony’s cell. Its sad that this is his new luxury, he misses memory foam.

He grins at Bucky from his place perched on the bed in the small cell he’s stuck in. “What makes you think that, sugar?” he asks. Bucky frowns a little but otherwise doesn’t react to the term of endearment. Curious, considering whenever he does that with everyone else he gets immediate disgust. Bucky is good at making himself more intriguing to Tony. That or he’s damn unflappable, but Tony doesn’t think that’s quite it.

“I watched a bunch of interviews, you put on a good mask. Too good actually, anyone who’s watched too many interviews in a row can see that you repeat yourself a lot. Different phrasing, but the same answers to the questions,” he says.

Actually no, no one has ever noticed that before save for one Agent Coulson and he never found a reason for it. And there is one. Contrary to popular belief he knows exactly what he’s doing. “Yeah? Tell me what you noticed,” he asks. “Since you came into this relatively fresh,” he adds.

Bucky pulls out a notebook and shifts so he’s sitting on one of his feet. He dresses like a cross between a goth and a hipster and Tony has never seen _that_ before, but he carries it well. His long brown hair is drawn into a bun at the back of his head, some tendrils of hair escaping around his face, and he wears his damage like a shield. Its not a very good one Tony knows, because if people sense weakness they will exploit it. He likes to think that, ultimately, people are better than that, but he has some serious doubts given his past and what he’s dug up on others. Hell, even his own past is spotty at best considering the whole serial killer thing let alone his time in weapons development.

Bucky though, he’s different, softer maybe, but not pliable. He makes Tony curious and that’s not something he’s been for a long time, not about another person anyways. Pepper had been the last, and Rhodey before that. People tend to be predictable and that’s fine, normal, but they don’t make for an exciting puzzle to solve. Rhodey, he’s so soft and empathetic and yet he joined the _military_ , the antithesis to his entire being. And Pepper, she’s strong, competent, but holds a significant amount of distrust in herself and others. They’re interesting and so is Bucky.

“You basically made a real life role out of the lovable misogynist trope, but that doesn’t hold to reality considering you’re well known for going out of your way to hire women, you regularly donated to women’s shelters, and you’ve always been outspoken about domestic violence. That last one is because your father was abusive, which fucking floors me that apparently this isn’t common knowledge despite you frequently referencing it on _multiple_ occasions in almost every interview I watched. You’re smart, obviously, but you’re not as smart at people as you think you are. You’re just really good at playing off your awkwardness. And you aren’t a psychopath,” Bucky tells him. The statement is definitive and Tony raises an eyebrow.

“I’ve been labeled many things by the average psychologist- narcissist and psychopath are the most popular. What drew you to the conclusion I’m not a psychopath?” he asks.

Its another leap, Tony knows it is because he plays a pretty convincing psychopath. It’s not difficult when everyone already thinks you are one. What was that study he heard about years ago? The one where people walked into a bunch of mental health institutions across the US and claimed to hear voices, but otherwise stuck to honesty when talking to psychologists? They found that the shrinks shaped their entire reality around the voices despite none of them actually hearing voices. That’s Tony- he kills people, but instead of looking at the whole picture he’s written off as a psychopath and everything in his life is used to support that supposed fact.

He knows he’s not a psychopath and frankly he thinks people are too afraid to admit to what it means if he isn’t. It’s easier to claim he’s nuts and wipe their hands clean no matter how much the evidence suggests it’s not true. And people wonder why he has no faith in psychology- these idiots shape everything around what they assume is the truth instead of actually finding it. Forgive him for correctly stating that the discipline is flawed at best, and pretty much next to useless in his opinion.

Bucky shakes his head, drawing Tony’s attention back to him. “Your speech on accountability before you stopped selling weapons. And everything you did for one Ho Yinsen post death. If you didn’t care, truly didn’t care, about anything there’s no reason for you to go _way_ out of your way to nearly destroy your company, recall every weapon you had in circulation at the moment, I suspect you killed Obadiah Stane but nice job making it look like an accident, and then all those relief efforts you sent to Yinsen’s home town and all the areas around it. That’s way too much effort in the shadows for someone who doesn’t feel empathy, or much else,” he adds.

True, though Tony knows he doesn’t feel emotions the way most do. But he does feel empathy, and Bucky is right. That’s too much effort put into Yinsen if he didn’t care about the guy. But no one else found that moment significant- as far as he can tell most have written it off as some kind of show though that makes no sense for the reason Bucky pointed out. No one really knows about it. “I knew you weren’t another stupid psychologist that was going to throw psychobabble at me,” he says though Bucky _does_ have a psychology degree.

Bucky snorts, “well, I’ve gotta admit watching that speech on accountability was a fucking _hoot_ considering you apparently think selling weapons is wrong, but serial killing? That’s fine. You have one fucked up sense of morality,” Bucky tells him.

Oh, he has his reasons. “So gorgeous, care to take a stab at why I even made a distinction?” he asks. Bucky doesn’t react to the phrase- _gorgeous_ \- not really, but he does laugh.

“You said it in the speech- accountability. You didn’t want innocent blood on your hands- but if you think it isn’t so innocent, well. We know how those people ended up. Besides that no one ever gave you credit for the murders you view yourself responsible for. You called yourself a terrorist once, which I would argue is relatively accurate even if you certainly don’t fit the usual psychology of one, but like I said. That’s not the murder you wanted to be responsible for. And you do want to be _responsible_.”

Emphasis on ‘responsible’. No one has ever made that leap either, they just get stuck on the dissonance of it and Tony supposes that’s fair. What serial killer cares about who he kills? Of course no one ever thinks of the dissonance _they_ have when it comes to his murders. Its fine if he makes bombs that kill people in various other countries, Afghanistan primarily at that point, but kill people in America? Now he’s a serial killer. “That’s insightful. More insightful than any other idiot who’s spent time with me and all you did was watch some videos and have a conversation with me. Sad, isn’t it?” he says wistfully.

Bucky watches him for a few moments, silent, before he speaks. “Maybe. Or maybe people don’t have the tools I do,” he says but they both know that’s bullshit.

“Honey, the only tool you have that’s different than everyone else is your brain. Unless you seriously have more resources than the US government. And if you do, color me impressed,” he says, grinning.

“You have a thing for pet names. My favorite is ‘platypus’ but Rhodey doesn’t appear to have kept contact with you,” Bucky says, taking this conversation to a totally new area.

Tony shrugs, “he didn’t approve of my hobbies.” Of course he rarely did even before he discovered they were murder. Though with his own body count Rhodey has no room to talk, but murder is fine so long as it’s state sanctioned. What an easy way to let yourself off the hook for your crimes, claiming you did it for your country. Tony has never found use for such excuses, not once he learned better anyways.

“And you don’t care that he stopped talking to you?” Bucky asks, head tilted to the side.

“I had no illusions about who would and wouldn’t care about me once I turned myself in. Rhodey has always had a strong sense of morality,” he says. Not a very accurate one, in Tony’s opinion, but a strong one nonetheless.

“You know he hasn’t publically denounced any connection to you, right?” Bucky asks and Tony knows that too. The other thing Rhodey has in spades is loyalty, and that’s as misplaced as his morality. Case and point- Tony knows that no matter how much Rhodey doesn’t want to he still cares about Tony. Probably not at all the way he used to, but he does. It’s why he’s never said anything to the public, gave any interviews, or cooperated with the police more than he needed to.

“It’d be senseless if he did, we have a twenty five year long history,” Tony points out. “A well-documented one at that.”

Bucky nods, “but most people would be happy to separate themselves from someone as… destructive as you. You have to have some kind of feelings about that.”

Feelings, at least Bucky is aware he has them. “Sure I do, but what do they matter? Rhodey has made his choices and I made mine. The results are pretty much exactly what I expected.” He’s never been close to many people anyways, and one out of three sticking around is more than he anticipated.

“‘Expected’ doesn’t mean wanted. What did you want, Tony?” Bucky asks.

It’s a good question; one no one has ever thought to ask him.

*

Sam looks worried, which Bucky takes to be some kind of sign from _god_ that he looks like hell or something. “What?” he asks because Sam once told him he’s the Ebola of people so he must look especially bad. Or Steve must have said something exceptionally worrying about his behavior.

“You sure you’re like… up for this?” he asks, squinting a little like he can figure Bucky out with a look. He spends too much time at the VA. Maybe Bucky probably has PTSD from both the car accident and Brock, but talking to a serial killer isn’t exactly going to shake that up. Frankly Tony is good company, which freaks him out more than anything. Its creepy how pleasant Tony is. You’d think a notorious serial killer wouldn’t be a good conversationalist but hey, Tony does seem to have a habit of proving people wrong about things. Seems to be a consistent habit of his, actually.

“What’s the worst that could happen? The guy is behind bars and there are guards everywhere,” Bucky points out. Not that he’s stupid enough to think Tony wouldn’t be able to escape that, he’s more than smart enough to figure it out, but he doesn’t seem especially motivated at the moment.

“I meant more as you know, a mental toll,” Sam says and Steve must have made this sound like the _apocalypse_ to Sam if he’s really asking about Bucky’s mental health.

He sighs, “Sam, if I made it through the descriptions of the murders I’m pretty sure I’ll make it through anything at this point.” Most of them were pretty fucking brutal. It’s so strange to pair Tony with his actions when he’s so… _normal_. Well, no, that’s not quite right, he isn’t normal at all but his beauty and obvious intelligence and fascination with watching Bucky put pieces together is hardly something he should find as interesting as he does. That is, he thinks, because no one else seems to have figured out what an absolute sham ninety percent of Tony’s act is. It’s amazing to him that anyone came to the conclusion that he’s a psychopath or a narcissist when neither is true.

Sam considers him for a moment before sighing. “I guess man, but this guy is next level fucked up and not to be a dick but you don’t really do well with fucked up,” he says.

Under normal circumstances that comment would piss him off, he doesn’t need another reminder of fucking Brock, but Sam looks so earnest it’s hard to be mad at him. Which is weird because being mad at Sam is his thing. “Maybe not but again, what’s the worst that could happen? I end up dropping the research? That will put me way behind on everything, but it won’t be the end of the world. I’m fine Sam, you can tell Steve that too,” he says.

Sam relaxes a little and grins, “great, now I can stop pretending to give a shit about you. You’re a plague on this planet, Barnes,” Sam tells him and Bucky snorts.

“You’re the reason god doesn’t talk to us anymore,” he says back.

Sam makes an offended noise but Bucky just shrugs. It’s not his fault that Sam is the reason for the planet’s eternal damnation, that’s just how it is.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning for references to child abuse (canon typical Howard things).

He’s separated the victims into categories that seem more bite-sized and yes, he can see that Tony obviously has a preference for upper class white men who, judging from their occupations, lived a certain lifestyle, but there are still too many people who don’t fit that bill to make it a shining beacon to him. He read one theory that Tony had some kind of self-loathing issue, which Bucky didn’t disagree with, but he flat out knows that Tony’s victims have little to do with his self esteem problems.

This isn’t the case of a man killing himself, essentially, over and over again with enough victims in other categories to throw people off. What a stupid theory. There’s a reason for the distinction, but Bucky doesn’t think it’s because the largest group of victims have lifestyles that are, in a lot of ways, similar to Tony’s. At least not the way that particular guy thought. 

Another psychologist suggested Tony had been playing into his vendetta against his father and Bucky thinks that has more merit even though, oddly, that take has been relatively ignored. Tony clearly hates his father though, he makes sure to reference that and the abuse he suffered at Howard’s hands in almost every interview Bucky has watched and by now that’s more than he’d care to admit. He got stuck in a YouTube hole the other day and ended up eyeball deep in conspiracies about Tony being a lizard person who broke lizard person laws and ended up in jail because of it and after five hours of that he decided that maybe that’s not the direction he wants to take. Though he has to admit listening to people talk about lizard people, alien chakras, and deep state conspiracies was fun. 

Point is he knows he’s found  _something_  in Tony’s victim pool, some part of this motivation, but he has no idea what he’s looking at and everyone else’s theories were either stupid or incomplete. He needs to find more information, more pieces to the puzzle because he’s on to something. He knows it. He’s got another meeting with Tony later in the week so he’s sure he’ll get more answers then. Tony seems to be pretty forthcoming with information so long as Bucky doesn’t ask what he deems to be stupid questions. If he does ask stupid questions Tony is happy to point that out. He seems to have little patience for what he perceives as idiocy. 

“Bucky, you’ve been staring at that wall for hours,” Steve tells him, leaning in his doorway looking a little haggard. Drawbacks of health issues, Bucky supposes. He’s carrying a cup of tea that probably won’t do much to make him feel better not that Steve cares. He loves tea almost more than he loves Sam, and Sam loves a different kind of tea all together. 

“There’s something here,” Bucky tells him and Steve shakes his head. 

“Bucky, there isn’t anything there,” he says. 

“That’s what you said about Quill and I found him so.” This isn’t new for them, it’s not the first obsession he’s had, and it’s not the first time Steve has gotten worried, but it always ends the same. Bucky runs out of facts to gather, comes to a conclusion, and drops it before moving on to something new and the cycle starts again. 

Steve sighs, “you got lucky, Buck. This… I don’t even know what you’re aiming to  _learn_  here,” he says. 

Well, he has his hypothesis- that Tony is a highly organized killer who holds no compulsion to kill, but who thinks that killing his targets is the most efficient way to satisfy whatever his motivation is, and that every single move he’s ever made has even highly calculated. But he needs to complete his research before finding any real conclusions. Tony has made several comments that tell him in one way or another that he’s right though, and he’s big on praise. A thought occurs to him so he grabs his notebook and writes it down before going back to his conversation with Steve.

“I’m trying to figure out why he did what he did, and why he chose to end things the way he did.” If Tony wanted to stop killing Bucky is positive he could have without issues, so why turn himself in with no one on his trail? And he doesn’t like jail at  _all_. Bucky is sure he’s not planning on making that an extended stay but he’s baffled as to why it was an option to begin with. He’s missing a piece of the puzzle. 

Steve lets out an annoyed noise, “does it matter, Bucky? He killed a stupid amount of people, who cares  _why_?” 

A lot of people, but Steve has always been squeamish about this subject. He holds none of the fascination with serial killers that the general public does. Actually he holds little interest in most taboos the general public is fascinated with and certainly doesn’t understand why people have the fascination to begin with.

Of course Bucky has his theories as to why people think they’re interesting to look at. Serial killers are salacious, forbidden- people hold a deep interest in why they do what they do because most people have a voyeuristic need to look in on the darkest human nature has to offer. People want to look into the actions of madmen from a safe place of judgment and curiosity- and those emotions are felt in almost equal parts. There’s a reason people remember the killer over the victims. Bucky isn’t any different than other people who study serial killers, he’s just more self aware and willing to admit that he’s fascinated by violence. Most people are- but admitting that means admitting to a dark part of yourself people like to keep well in the dark lest that fascination turn into something they don’t like.

“He’s an unusual killer,” Bucky says. “You might have no idea how I’m interested in this but honestly I have no idea how you could look at any of this stuff and  _not_  want to look into this more. This guy is a series of contradictions that cumulates to mean _something_  and I don’t get how you think that’s not worth figuring out.” Steve, he’s disgusted by all of this, and rightfully so given the state of some of the murders, but Bucky finds this kind of thing intriguing- the mystery of it draws him in. 

“Yeah, I don’t get this,” Steve says, shaking his head. “Neither does Sam.” 

Bucky snorts, “Sam is the cause of the bee population dying, his opinion doesn’t matter.”

*

Tony looks enthused to see Bucky again, “you look excited, what have you got for me, gorgeous?” Tony asks. Its blasé, his reference to Bucky’s looks and he’s sure its not a faked attraction though he’s going to test that. He’s found no written references to Tony being bisexual, but he knows better than most that the information floating around about Tony isn’t the most reliable. Best to look into things himself given how often he finds readily available information that the media or the cops haven’t picked up on for whatever reason. Shit, the guy references his abusive father every five minutes and only one out of the seven documentaries mentioned anything about it. All the others referenced his relationship with his father as ‘troubled’. So if people missed his being bisexual too Bucky would not be surprised.

“Hopefully the beginnings of a motive,” Bucky says and Tony’s eyes light up in genuine joy. God, that’s weird, but it gives Bucky a small amount of pride that he’s impressed someone who isn’t very easy to impress. “Don’t look too excited, I’ve got a theory, not an answer,” he says.

It probably says something about him that he doesn’t want Tony’s look of joy to disappear with his lack of answers. He gets what he wants when Tony gives him a coy look, “so what’s the theory, sugar?”

Bucky tilts his head to the side, “what is with you associating me with sweet items? You’re the only one who’s made the comparison,” he says. He’s been told he’s perfected the murder face, which he doesn’t understand because he doesn’t really want to look like he’s about to kill anyone.

Tony shrugs, “maybe I see something they don’t. Theory?” he asks, apparently eager to get to the point today. Usually he’ll pussyfoot around a little, make conversation though Bucky doesn’t mind this.

He pulls out his notes, “I tried separating the victims into categories based on a few things and didn’t find much, but going through the list a few stuck out. There’s about fifteen victims, which is only about a third of the people you admitted to killing, but they were killed in the same way they hurt someone else. I’m not the first one to notice this obviously, but people keep mentioning the domestic violence charges to explain this. Its not true for every crime though- there are enough of these murders that don’t fit the pattern for it not to be a true pattern but I think I’m onto something,” he says.

He shuffles his papers some, pulling up another set of notes he’d made about Tony’s behavior that he’s sure will become relevant in a moment. “Now, the beginnings of the pattern I found can’t hold true for every murder you committed, I’m pretty sure someone would notice if your victims straight up eviscerated people, but I think there’s something there even if I don’t have all the pieces yet,” he says. Tony doesn’t even need to speak for Bucky to know he’s right, at least on some level. “So am I on the right track?” he asks.

Tony is looking at him with something akin to surprise and respect and Bucky knows that’s not a common expression for him. “Yeah you are, but those cases aren’t much of a challenge, are they?” he asks, coy look making a return.

He lets out a small laugh, “I know that, but I needed to find a thread to pull first and I think I’ve got it. I don’t know what it is exactly, but it does give me something to look for in everything else.” The problem is that a lot of Tony’s victims didn’t have kids, or any history of abuse against their spouses, so his common thread is gone even if he’s _sure_ he has something.

They sit in silence for a moment before Tony speaks. “A red truck, stolen, leaves town within a week of a kid going missing. What made you think to connect the two?” he asks.

The Quill Case, that’s not what Bucky expected. “I had a hunch,” he says but Tony shakes his head.

“A stolen vehicle in a town where vehicles are stolen almost as much as crops isn’t a hunch. That’s not even a Hail Mary. The events were a week apart, there’s no reason to think they were connected at all. What did you see that no one else did?” he asks.

That’s not the first time he’s been asked that and he sighs. “Pretty much nothing except that the truck belonged to Quill’s neighbor, he would have recognized it. If I were going to snatch a kid I’d use a vehicle he’s familiar with,” he says.

“So you thought like the guys who did it, then?” Tony asks and Bucky wrinkles his nose.

“I have no strong desire to kidnap kids, no. But Quill was taken with no evidence, no sign of struggle, and no clue to where he headed. No footprints, fingerprints, tire tracks, nothing at all. People thought that was weird but it wouldn’t be if he got into a vehicle that drives all over town, meaning the tracks aren’t unusual, and it would be a vehicle Quill knew. His mom just died, it’d be easy to feed a distraught kid a line about picking him up for the neighbor. It explains the lack of evidence if he went willingly, unknowingly aiding his kidnappers.” The theory was nuts, but when Bucky started putting the pieces together, including the few Quill sightings after his disappearance, it followed Yondu’s trail exactly. And when he found Peter Quill, then using the last name Udanta- obviously borrowed of Yondu- he’d been in jail of all places. But he’d been right about everything despite the flimsy start.

Tony considers him for a moment before smiling, “you’re damn smart, you know that? Nothing was unusual about that truck, it was found two weeks later stripped of anything valuable. That isn’t even odd for the town in question. And you solved a cold missing person’s case based on a flimsy theory and a gut feeling. It’s impressive.”

It’s the reason Tony chose him in particular, Bucky realizes. And he’s got nothing but a theory and a gut feeling for that too. “You have a thing for praise, at least if you think it’s warranted. What’s with that?” he asks. He’d made note of it before, but he’s genuinely curious as to why that is.

“Doesn’t everyone?” Tony asks, frowning a little even though they both know that’s not true.

“‘He was cold and calculating. He never told me he loved me, he never even told me he liked me’. Your words regarding Howard’s attitude towards you so no, not everyone does that and you didn’t grow up in an environment that taught you how to praise behaviors you wanted to see more of,” Bucky says bluntly. “So why’d you pick it up?”

That Tony is annoyed with the shift in conversation is obvious but all he does about it is give Bucky a dirty look. “Abuse runs in cycles. I have no desire to further the circle of shame. You don’t need praise to know it’s important, the fact that you’re upset you never got any is education enough.”

God, that’s a harsh answer. “You disappeared for almost four years after your parents died and in that time you killed Tiberius Stone for apparently no reason. The guy was a dick from what I gathered, but what did he do to you?” he asks. He also happens to be the first victim to fit Tony’s later profile of victims, but _long_ before Tony switched up who he killed. It feels impulsive, but Bucky doesn’t think it is.

The change in direction throws Tony again. “Ty? _That’s_ the victim you choose to name first? He is so not worthy of that,” Tony mumbles.

“So what’d he do?” Bucky asks again.

“What makes you think he did anything?” Tony counters.

Bucky grins, “call it a gut feeling. And the fact that no one had anything nice to say about him after his death. People martyr the dead- I watched a whole city full of people totally forgive their crack smoking mayor that they all hated just because he died. The fact that no one martyred this guy is pretty damn telling. Especially after it came out that he was murdered.” Simple psychology- people are always more forgiving in death than life. It almost doesn’t matter what you do, once you die you’re turned into a saint. People might have been polite about their dislike of Tiberius Stone but if no one has anything nice to say about you after you died you must have been a real asshole.

Tony considers him for a long moment before sighing, “Ty… contributed to some of my problems,” he says evasively.

“‘Problems’ being?” Bucky asks because that’s not a real answer.

Tony sighs, “well, Ty was the one who gave me my reputation, one I’ve never liked either. But you know how easy it is to gain a reputation and how hard it is to lose it. So I killed him for it,” he says casually.

There is _so_ much more to that story but Tony isn’t going to tell him much about it, not right now. He’s stretched the limits of his rapport. “My uh, my best friend seems to think I’m in over my head with this,” he says.

It works as a distraction because Tony snorts, “clearly your best friend has no faith in you. And doesn’t seem to know your skillset.”

It’s weird to him that a serial killer has more faith in him than Steve. Especially since Steve tends to be his number one fan, except in this instance apparently. “In his defense I have a habit of attracting the wrong kinds of people,” he says. “And I’m not good at recognizing it.”

“So you _have_ been abused. I thought so,” Tony says with a creepy level of certainty.

“What led you to that conclusion?” he asks.

Tony shrugs, “when you’ve been through it you learn to recognize it. What happened?” he asks. His voice is soft and he looks genuinely mournful, more than Bucky usually gets when people find out about Brock. Usually what he gets is incredulous looks and thinly veiled disbelief. He knows he doesn’t look like a victim, but its not his fault other people have a preconceived notion of what that looks like. To add insult to injury small women lacking in muscle mass and imposing presence don’t get taken seriously either. That’s always pissed him off. Why build a profile of what a real victim of abuse looks like only to dismiss them when they come forward too?

“Brock was never too good to be true, and if I’m honest I always knew something was off. But never off enough to care until it was too late. Then I didn’t know what to do,” he says.

“Possessive, then, but under the guise of being worried. Probably the jealous type. Went through your stuff, but always had a good excuse for it. Things people aren’t confortable with, but wouldn’t label abuse because abuse is only ever talked about if its physical,” Tony says matter-of-factly.

Yeah, he doesn’t like that Tony guessed Brock’s type dead on but he supposes Tony has his own history of abuse. Quite a long one at that. He’s sure if he doled out a profile of Howard Stark he’d guess right. But he has the benefit of more information. He nods though, “petty much,” he admits somewhat reluctantly.

“You aren’t stupid for falling for it, you know. People aren’t well versed in early stages of abuse, or any abuse that doesn’t look like being smacked around. That’s not your fault,” Tony tells him and he means it too. Its ridiculous to Bucky that he just got more sympathy from a guy that makes H.H Holms look like a pleasant hotel manager than he does from the general public. A _serial killer_ is more empathetic than the average American, wow.

“Thanks for that,” he says and it comes out harsher than he means it to. He isn’t mad at Tony, but he seems to know that.

“It isn’t easy when you don’t look the way people expect you to,” Tony murmurs, “but that doesn’t mean it didn’t happen. And it doesn’t mean you didn’t suffer.”

He guesses Tony would know a thing of two about that. He grew up with everything anyone could ever want, and oh, his father kicked his ass on a regular basis and people he did interviews with played it off like a joke. The thought makes something click and he’s got a new theory, but he needs to start looking in to things before he can come to any kind of conclusion.

In his cell Tony smiles as he watches the light bulb go off in Bucky’s head and he knows he’s going the right way.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Holy frickin Christ, I'm pretty sure I spent more time editing this chapter than writing it. To be fair it is an improvement over what I had.

Parties aren’t really his thing, but Steve is worried about how much time he’s spending with the murder board so here he is with a red solo cup in his hand trying to connect the dots remotely. “You look lonely over here,” someone says and Bucky turns to find a ridiculously hot redhead grinning at him. He gets the feeling she thinks she’s going to eat him alive and he’s never had a thing for vore, but he might make an exception for her. Behind her Steve is craning his neck to try and watch the interaction and Bucky barely keeps from rolling his eyes.

“I hate parties,” he says bluntly. “Drunk people are stupid and lack all coordination and common sense.” He’s living proof people who are sober lack those things too but at least when people are sober they make an effort to pretend to have their shit together.

The redhead laughs, “me too. Except drunk people make me want to become a mass murderer because they’re so damn annoying.”

Bucky snorts, “guess if you do I can write a paper on it- murder seems to be my thing these days. I’m Bucky, if Steve didn’t already tell you that in whatever probably bullshit pitch he threw at you,” he says.

“Natasha. And the pitch was that you like memes and conspiracy theories and apparently murderers too. Color me curious, I want to know what that means,” she says, lips curling up a little.

Memes and conspiracy theories, that’s what he sold her? Well, at least Steve rightfully threw forth his only two personality traits. “I uh, I’m writing a PhD thesis on Tony Stark. Surprisingly pleasant guy all things considered,” he says.

Natasha raises an eyebrow. “He’s not the type that likes to talk, not for the purpose of saying anything with meaning anyway. Strange, considering his personality. I’d assume a narcissist would want to hear himself talk for the sake of it but everything I’ve read mostly suggests he talks people into circles to be an ass.”

Ah, so Natasha has bought into _that_ line of thinking. “He isn’t a narcissist,” Bucky says. “Arrogant, but never more than what he’s earned. And he talks people around in circles because he’s kind of pretentious and gets annoyed with people misreading his actions.” He also seems to have very picky taste on who he spends a lot of time with. He’s certain there’s a common link between himself, Pepper, and Rhodey but he has no idea what that link is. He does, however, know that Tony holds a high admiration for intelligence and if he thinks a person lacks it he respects them significantly less.

“You sure he isn’t a narcissist? Because he spends a whole lot of time talking himself up and dismissing everyone else,” she says.

Most people do that even if Tony does it in extremes. But everyone likes to think they’re right and gets upset when confronted- that’s how people work. “Yes. He plays a narcissist well, but he isn’t one. He’s certainly arrogant, but given his accomplishments in engineering and in murder I’d say he’s not wrong to think highly of himself. I doubt anyone who isn’t as smart as him could have his victim pool.”

Tony is one of the smartest people in the world too and that’s before considering his murders. The credit he’s earned is more than most people could ever even hope to achieve in their lifetimes and he’s earned prestigious awards in several areas, mostly science, since he was a kid. Then there’s the way he went about serial killing in a way that managed to fly under the radar despite being a highly public celebrity figure. Its not a good kind of impressive, but it is impressive.

“Hmm. Care to share the evidence for that?” Natasha asks.

Bucky is pretty sure the entire point of this was to get him to _not_ spend more time on Tony and his murders and personality but Natasha is interested and who is he to say no? Which is how he ends up having an extended conversation with Natasha about his current theories on Tony’s behavior and motives that Steve would one hundred percent disapprove of.

*

This… is weird. Tony looks intrigued because he seems to know something is up- he’s quite good at reading expressions when he puts the effort in. “Are you going to fill me in on what’s got you so uncomfortable?” he asks, raising an eyebrow. “It isn’t the fact that I killed a lot of people, I think I can rule that out,” he adds.

Bucky almost laughs at Tony’s absurd joke but settles with smiling. “I uh… think I used you as a pick up line last night and I think that’s really weird?” he asks more than states. And Natasha had complimented his murder wall too, which really only serves to make things even more strange. But she’d been gone in the morning so its not like he could ask what the hell was up with that. And then Steve made breakfast looking hopeful so he didn’t want to dash his dreams by telling him that Tony featured far too heavily in his one night stand for his liking. And definitely a lot more than Steve’s liking.

Tony raises an eyebrow; “you _think_ you used me as a pickup line? Because now I’m really curious.” He looks enthused, which is odd considering there’s nothing interesting about his current predicament. For a moment he wonders if its some strange brand of jealousy given his liberal compliments on Bucky’s looks but that’s kind of stupid so he dismisses the thought outright. Clearly something else about the situation tickles his fancy and frankly Bucky isn’t sure he wants the answer to the why of that. Ok, he absolutely wants the answer, but he’s sure its something horrifying that he never wanted to know about.

“Well don’t look so happy about it, that’s weird. And yeah, I uh… met a woman who found my research interesting. And potentially sexually appealing, I’m not clear on that. She walk of shamed before I woke up.” Steve hadn’t seen her either, which prompted a line of questioning Bucky wanted nothing to do with. Just because Steve is worried about his new hobby doesn’t mean he needs to be. Honestly Bucky thinks he’s had weirder hobbies than hanging out with serial killers. And technically he only hangs out with one. Okay, technically not true on the weirder hobbies front but they way he’s doing this isn’t different from the way he engages in anything else he spends an abundance of time on. Steve doesn’t need to worry.

“Can’t say I’ve heard that before. Except maybe those letters from people who are apparently attracted to felons. I had fans before all this though, seems at least a few remained loyal,” he says.

Bucky knows- he gets a lot of letters from some guy named Gary. He’d like to come to the conclusion that sending letters off to a serial killer is weird but he hangs out with Tony on a regular basis so he isn’t in a place to talk. “How do you feel about that?” he asks, curious about how Tony perceives his reputation. He’s hinted that he didn’t care for it at least before he stopped selling weapons, he’s not sure if he grew more fond of his reputation after. Bucky is curious to see what his opinion looks like now, how its shifted over time. He suspects Tony still doesn’t care for his fans but he has no real proof.

Tony wrinkles his nose and for a moment he thinks he’s right about his conclusions but then Tony speaks. “Did you seriously just ask the typical ‘how do you feel about that?’ shrink question?” he asks.

Seriously? He’s upset Bucky wasn’t clever enough? “Yeah. You’ve alluded to not liking the attention you get so is that still true or do you have a different relationship with your fans now?” he asks.

“I’ve never had _any_ relationship with my fans- they have parasocial relationships with me,” Tony says.

Bucky doesn’t know if he should be happy or embarrassed that he only knows that term because Bo Burham referenced it in a show once. But he did do some reading on parasocial relationships afterwards though and Tony isn’t wrong. His fans’ relationships with him _do_ only go one way- its not as if _he’s_ pouring time, energy, and emotional investment into these connections. “Alright,” Bucky says, “fine, then. Do you think there’s a difference between your fans from before all this and after? Do you even care if there is a difference?”

Tony half smiles, “I care, but not for the reasons people might think. I think these people are dumping effort into someone who isn’t worthy of it and also I’m in prison. What the hell could they possibly get out of sending me letters?”

Pretty much what people get out of any celebrity interaction, Bucky supposes. “You don’t like that people put effort into a relationship with you?” he asks. The question is intentionally vague on who he’s talking about. He wants to see if this is how Tony feels about all relationships or just his fans.

“Not when I don’t put any effort into a returned set of feelings, and not when our relationship is better summed up by saying they have a weird obsession with me,” Tony says. Still on his fans, then.

“You seemed fairly interactive with fans before you went to prison,” Bucky says. There were plenty social media interactions especially, but he spent time with them in person too.

Tony shrugs, “that’s what was expected of me.”

Yeah, as if he really believes that. “Tony, you don’t do anything that’s expected of you. Why the hell would you chose to meet your social expectations _there_ but almost nowhere else? Because by all accounts you’re an asshole and its part of your charm. Granted I think that’s another trope you used to hide your actual personality- the Lovable Asshole plays nice with the Lovable Misogynist, but still. That’s a weird place to chose meeting your social expectations.” Any other situation and Tony does what he wants when he wants but plays nice with fans? There must be a reason.

For a moment Tony doesn’t respond, but eventually he sighs. “I hate being a celebrity but it makes for a useful alibi sometimes. The fans didn’t know they were playing a role in the game I was playing; it felt unnecessary to be rude to them because they’re idiots. Most people are a fan of someone,” he says.

“You deal with fans because you feel bad that you made them unwitting character witnesses and alibis? That’s not why you deal with them now, you’re in prison. They no longer have that use,” he points out.

Tony shrugs, “I’m bored,” he says. “You’re the only exciting thing in my life, sweet cheeks, except the guards being dicks sometimes. Does it seem _wise_ to you to irritate someone with a body count as high as mine?” he asks more out loud to himself than anything.

No, but Bucky knows Tony probably wouldn’t do anything drastic anyways, not unless the guards fit his usual MO. Otherwise they’d be likely to be hurt, but not permanently. “Probably not but honestly you’re a pretty agreeable guy,” he says. At least when he feels like cooperating.

“You’re the first to claim that,” Tony says, grinning. “Most people think I’m too much of something. Usually too much of an asshole.”

“Maybe its because I’m the first to figure out the game you’re playing. You seem to like an opponent that’s equal to you,” Bucky says.

*

Tony is thankful that part of this irritating prison transfer has resulted in way less time in isolation. Its not that he can’t handle small dank rooms made of concrete, he can, but he doesn’t like it any. Here at least he’s now been released to an almost normal cell- he gets a small window that looks out at the rest of the prison and a bed that isn’t horrible compared to what he’s grown used to. And, and this is the best part, he gets an hour of free time that does include phone privileges. Not that he has many people to call other than Bucky minus one person, but he won’t at least at the moment- no need to let anyone know he maintains that connection. Well, he supposes that’s not entirely true. There’s a couple people he could call but neither would appreciate it for wildly different reasons so Bucky it is.

He’s almost surprised Bucky answers the call if for no other reason than knowing about that weird millennial thing where they all hate phone calls. Tony’s too old to have fallen into that generation and that habit, but Bucky does answer. “Since when can you use the phone?” is what Bucky says in place of an actual greeting and Tony smiles.

“Well gorgeous, the good thing about having you around is that if I cooperate I don’t get stuffed into solitary. Guess you making connections everyone else couldn’t means I’m cooperating,” he says, leaning against a wall. Some asshole is glaring at him from across the room and Tony raises an eyebrow in question. Is this guy actually willing to test his patience? When he looks away Tony is almost disappointed because his day _could_ have been interesting and instead he gets nothing. He supposes he shouldn’t be surprised with his reputation but still.

“Out of curiosity are you actually attracted to me or is this a remnant of your years-long cultivation of a fake personality?” Bucky asks.

Tony snorts at the stupid question. “Did you seriously just ‘no homo’ me commenting in a pretty explicit way on your looks _multiple_ times? Because yeah, I’m bisexual. Media confirmed it years ago but buried it when I refused to act ashamed like they expected.” At the time being any kind of gay wasn’t something people wanted to admit to, but people liked him. It seems that media outlets collectively decided that they didn’t want to ruin him, or that his lack of shame would do more to ruin _them_ given how much people liked him, so nothing really came of the rumors. Its not like he sleeps with guys often, he’s always had a preference for women, but he’s never hid his attractions either.

“I don’t know what to do with the information that a serial killer thinks I’m hot,” Bucky says. “Guess at least my murder board safely rules out physical looks as your motivation so that probably means I’m safe.” He highly doubts Bucky fits into his victim pool so yes, he’s more than likely not on Tony’s radar.

“I wouldn’t think too much of it, most people with functioning eyeballs would find you attractive,” he says. A bit awkward, maybe, and he certainly has a strange set of interests, but Tony knows better than most that being attractive will make people forgive quite a bit.

Bucky makes a noncommittal noise in response. “So I’ve been looking over this murder board and dude, how the _fuck_ did you even keep this murder schedule? You had a fucking break neck pace from twenty-one until you turned yourself in and yeah, that’s two decades, but there’s a lot of people here. Also two thirds of your victims are high-profile targets and like… most have missing reports but no one seems to have paid attention to them? What the hell?” He’s thinking out loud but Tony doesn’t mind.

“You _do_ realize I’m a tech genius who has a lot of connections with the media and a ton of money, right? It’s not hard to make investigations go away,” he points out. It’s not exactly the truth but it’s not a lie either. Making things go away comes easy when he’s got good help, even if it’s tedious as hell.

“There’s no evidence you tampered with any of this,” Bucky says. “Also, you’re not dumb enough to leave a trail that obvious. If you did cops would have found it. They appear to be incompetent in your case but not glaringly stupid,” he adds.

Tony rolls his eyes, “again, _tech genius_. There wouldn’t _be_ any evidence, none that anyone would be smart enough to find anyways.” The list of people who can out do his ability to work with tech is a list so short he doesn’t even need all the fingers on one hand. And one of those people is more an equal than someone who can out do him. Though Vanko isn’t as smart as him in other areas given that his stupid ass landed in prison for terrorism years ago.

Plus it’s easy to make it look like the families didn’t want the news of their missing relative to hit the wrong parts of the media. Journalists suck and sensationalism sells more than facts. Looks convincing to cops that they’d get hush money to keep their investigation private, especially when family members, friends, or coworkers were all aware of his victims crimes crimes on some level. Usually just the white collar stuff but its enough to not want to tarnish a company or a family through some overdramatic news bit. That’s easy enough to exploit. Families prodding the cops to move faster were mostly intercepted and it’s not hard for people to believe cops are stupid and incompetent at their jobs. Insuring they didn’t get someone _else_ to look into disappearances was a bitch, though.

Bucky makes a small noise of irritation. “I still don’t know how you kept pace here- some of these victims wouldn’t catch any attention but one of them was a damn senator and most of what I found on that guy was connections to white supremacy that totally overshadowed his being missing.”

Which isn’t an accident, but Tony lets Bucky think it is. He’s not the one who needs to figure out his crimes, he committed them. Plus it’s boring to just tell people the details. “Well, Sitwell was fucking useless anyways,” Tony says, shrugging.

“Actually, a lot of these people’s missing cases were attached to some other crime. Most of which wasn’t found in the initial investigations, mind, but the FBI dug up a lot. Or if there were no missing cases that I could find there were a whole bunch of news articles on crimes they committed. Lot of white-collar crime in particular. Any chance that was you?” he asks, putting things together now. “Behind the media slant towards evading criminal charges,” he clarifies.

“Pretty sure I don’t have total control over the media. I’m not one of those lizard overlords you’ve undoubtedly read about,” he says casually.

“Don’t play dumb,” Bucky says and Tony smiles, “you know what I mean. Did you manage to do something that resulted in the media intentionally slanting their articles this way? Tip them off somehow in a way that resulted in them being more focused on your victim’s crimes than their disappearance?” he asks. Ah, his In Case Of Emergency if the media _did_ happen to catch a whiff of a missing victim be it from family or cops getting to media outlets before Tony had a chance to play them off each other.

The idea had come to him after he nearly died in Afghanistan. Yinsen, poor guy had no fucking _clue_ who he was working with. Tony feels bad for that actually. Yinsen should have saved someone worth his later sacrifice to save Tony, someone who would follow his advice not to waste his life. Of all his unintentional victims Yinsen might be the one he feels the most guilt over. But when he came back and busted Obadiah for selling weapons to terrorists suddenly his being missing and found within the space of a month disappeared. That’s a big thing to leave the media, a beloved celebrity being captured by terrorists. Sensationalism has victimized him his whole damn live but after Afghanistan he found a new use for it.

He wonders if Rhodey regrets finding him now, with what he knows.

It did mean that he learned fast that if people didn’t like the missing person, if they were linked to something people found deplorable on some level, than people would talk about that over them being missing. And when Obadiah died, supposedly of natural causes, no one cared. So Tony gave people reasons not to care. Now the public, they’re not very forgiving and even if they never knew the extent of those people’s crimes, they were quick to forget those people were missing if they knew they were missing at all. The real trick was making white-collar crime sound interesting to people and journalists that don’t give a shit about numbers but he managed.

Families were harder- Tony worked to ensure their efforts to try and get help were blocked. He made an effort to quell their attempts to locate him, essentially, which is generally where investigators got confused. There’s only so much time in a day, and less time in a day when you’re under a microscope like Tony was. But of course they didn’t know about JARVIS, no one knows much about the AI other than the fact that he exists. It’s made the cops extra confused because there’s no way Tony could have done everything he did by himself.

No one ever considers the AI though, or even anyone else in Tony’s life minus a short stint that focused on Pepper but it faded fast. He guesses it’s easier to assume he killed all those people on his own with no help. It makes him the only villain and he’s already in prison. That makes people feel safer though most people don’t have a reason to feel unsafe not that they know that.

“Maybe,” Tony tells Bucky evasively. “Track the information.”

Bucky sighs, “you’re irritating when you leave me to figure shit out on my own. The crimes though, they make a convincing story that these people might have disappeared to escape consequences for their actions,” Bucky says. “On purpose or no?”

No, but he doesn’t tell Bucky that. People naturally drew that conclusion even though the story didn’t fit the evidence. Most weren’t in danger of being found out when they went missing, and quite a few people had scapegoats at the ready. Any shady business asshole does- Obi tried to pin his crimes on Tony and wasn’t that a fucking joke. Guy tries to pin terrorism on a serial killer without knowing his patsy has an unusual hobby. Media loved that when the news of his confession broke. “I thought I told you to follow the information,” he tells Bucky, a note of disapproval in his voice.

He gets a soft, annoyed sigh for his efforts. “Fine then. What’s with the sudden victim change? It wasn’t attached to any major life events that I could find and despite the leading theories I don’t think you were looking for some kind of… I don’t know, thrill from a tough target or some shit. I’ve read like five books on your supposed arrogance in the way you chose targets. _Yeah_ , you chose powerful people even in your early days but if you wanted infamy you’re smart enough to kill people in public and not have it trace back to you. That’s not it. And that doesn’t explain the shift in victims at _all_. So what’s with that?” he asks. Once again Bucky proves himself smarter than the leading experts. People do _so_ love to shove crime into these convenient narratives, little bite-sized bits of information that are easy to digest for the public.

Why does Tony kill? Glory- that’s why pretty much everyone assumed he chose his targets. He killed a US senator and got away with it for years pretty much because people were shocked at how the guy handled basically everything in his career. Sitwell pretty much fucked himself with his own disgusting behavior given how little people cared to find him once they found out what he’d been up to and they didn’t even know everything.

Tony supposes the glory theory isn’t a totally illogical conclusion- he’s pretty well known for enjoying a challenge and rubbing it in people’s faces when he does the impossible. But that’s not why he chose his targets. And any idiot looking at the evidence would see why based on all the points Bucky brought up.

“You know,” Tony says, “even the early victims have easy to follow trails if you know where to look, gorgeous. I’ve told you twice now to follow the information,” he points out. He doesn’t need Tony to put it together for him, Bucky’s good enough at scrapping together information on his own.

He can almost hear Bucky thinking. “I… you… okay, fine, noted. But the first person you killed- they aren’t on this list. You started listing names from when you were nineteen and onwards, so who was unlucky number one?” he asks. “Must have been someone important given the cool off period,” he adds.

Oh, there would have been no cool off period if Tony fucking did it right but he _didn’t_. Frankly he only killed Ty when he did because he became more trouble than he was worth and Tony had to do _something_ about him. He’d fantasized about killing him for a while and he had plenty of proof for Ty’s guilt so he followed through. He wonders about that too sometimes, why he made the leap from murder fantasies to actual murder.

He’s read so much shit about inherent evilness, psychopathy, and compulsion to kill that he’s come to the conclusion that people either don’t know what they’re talking about or they’re interpreting the information in some very skewed ways. He’s never had the compulsion to kill, he could- and did- stop when he decided he wanted to and he doesn’t think he’s evil in the way people like to assume serial killers are. He’s no psychopath either. And even if he was, given that there is at least some evidence to show that kind of thing exists, not all psychopaths are killers. So once again- what makes him different from everyone else, including the supposedly inherently evil psychopath?

What, and where, does the difference between him and, say, Rhodey start and end? They have a lot in common; probably more than Rhodey is comfortable with now, so how come Rhodey decided murder fantasies were enough when he didn’t? Obviously Rhodey has murder fantasies, everyone has wanted to kill someone at some point in their lives. But Rhodey has clearly never thought of following through on them in any serious manner. Tony did and has, but why?

Or does there even need to be a why? He wonders if his curiosity is because everyone _else_ wonders why he did what he did or if it stems from his own desire to know how and why he came to be who he is. Probably other people, he thinks, given that he’s never really been sorry he killed anyone he set out to. The people he didn’t? Those people he feels guilty for- they didn’t do anything wrong.

“I’m not going to get an answer out of you, am I?” Bucky asks after the silence stretches on a little.

Tony shakes his head, “‘Fraid not, gorgeous.”


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Have another chapter for funsies! Also, this is a major turning point chapter in which Bucky Learns Some Things.
> 
> Warning for animal (dog) murder though- nothing detailed but its there.

Bucky starts back at the early victims first again mostly because they’re easier. Tony has alluded that the pattern he finds here will carry on so he’s trying to figure it out. Its not that it takes long to find the pattern, but he thinks due diligence is important and wants to go through all the victims before deciding his pattern is the right one. He’s got a list on his not murder wall of everything each victim has in common.

“Jesus Christ, Bucky,” Steve says from the door way as he sticks another bunch of traits, crimes, and jail sentences to the wall beside the others. He looks horrified and Bucky sighs.

“Just get to the lecture, Steve,” he says, exhausted. He’d been _pissed_ to find out Tony called and what the hell was Bucky supposed to do? Hang up on the guy? He’s handing over free time to get more information, why the hell would he do that? His phone bill is going to hate him, but still.

“What the hell even is all this?” he asks, gesturing to Bucky’s new wall.

“Me tracking motivation. I think I’ve got it figured out but I want to confirm it for all these victims before I start looking into everyone else,” he says. These victims are the easiest, he knows, because no one cared to cover their crimes assuming the rest have them. But he gets the distinct feeling that dredging up the similarities between frequent ex cons and ‘respectable’ people is going to be work. No one cares to cover for some random poor woman involved in a bunch of drug trafficking, but the hotshot lawyer working for a well-known company that needs to keep an image? Yeah, there’s a vested interest in covering his crimes.

“Bucky, I’m worried about the amount of time you’re spending with these murders. And the guy who killed all these people. They guy was _prolific_ \- looking at this all day can’t possibly be healthy.” He knows Steve is worried but frankly his work is little more traumatizing than the average mortician and he doubts Steve would advocate to get rid of that job. Hell, even cops and EMTs have jobs that are bloodier than this. Any first responder has seen some shit. In comparison Bucky’s armchair psychology is nothing, really. Its easy, he reasons, to distance himself from crimes he’s never had to personally witness.

“This isn’t traumatizing, Steve, its enlightening. And I think I’ve found the connection too, but I have to make sure it fits everyone.” So far it fits his easiest victims, but looking into the high profile targets is going to be a right pain in his ass. Family, he doubts, will be willing to talk not that he isn’t going to try. Law enforcement will probably be even less willing to talk if they’ve covered something up. So investigating will take some work, but with a victim pool as large as Tony’s he figures he has a good chance at finding shortcuts fast. He’s got a bunch of test subjects to use.

Steve looks flabbergasted at his words and honestly Bucky doesn’t get it. “Not traumatizing- Bucky these people are _dead_ , how can you not feel bad for them?”

Bucky raises an eyebrow at Steve, who clearly hasn’t read the traits on the wall if _he_ feels bad for them. “Steve, half of these people are rapists, almost all of them have committed nasty assaults, mostly against significant others and children, and three of them were murderers themselves. Plus all the rest of the miscellaneous charges. I can’t say I hold a lot of pity for any of these people if I’m honest.” He simply can’t bring himself to pity an abuser of any kind, and he can’t say he’s all that fond of rapists either. Maybe he doesn’t agree with Tony’s methods, but he doesn’t think the world has lost anything by removing these people from it.

If this pattern holds, the crimes the victims committed, Bucky will have no choice but to determine that law enforcement is useless. As it is the connection he’s made is that none of these people got jail time, or if they did it was so miniscule that it was almost an insult. It seems Tony thought the justice system failed and administered his own brand of it. But as it stands Bucky has only confirmed that to be true for eight people so far. He already knows a lot of Tony’s more high profile targets committed crimes, but they aren’t even remotely the same as the ones the victims he’s sifting through now have committed.

Given that a criminal record typically involving a long list of assaults and no jail time, or miniscule jail time, is the connection he’s drawn between the first fifteen victims he doesn’t think Tony will have suddenly decided tax evasion earned the rest of his victims a death warrant. Bucky suspects that pattern will carry over even if it’s not obvious to him now.

Steve finally looks over at the wall and scans over Bucky’s similarities board. “Then what’s with the rest? This is less than a third of his victims,” Steve says.

Bucky shrugs, “I doubt he broke pattern- I’m pretty sure there’s a bunch of stuff people have either covered up or forgot about with the rest.” His bets are on covered up but he needs evidence to say that definitively.

“I think you need to get out of your room, Bucky. You spend way too much time in here,” Steve says.

He doesn’t, not really. “I spend the same amount of time in here that I always have, you just don’t like the activities I’m doing,” he says. “Which really doesn’t make sense considering its technically school work.” He hasn’t started writing anything yet, he’s still very much in the research stage, but he’s got time.

“Well forgive me for worrying that you spend more time with a fucking serial killer than me,” Steve snaps, apparently at his wits end.

Bucky rolls his eyes, “oh whatever Steve, you’re never even home. You’re always with Sam, so its not like I’ve got anything better to do and why do you think Tony being a serial killer is like the only quality he has? You do realize he’s a whole person, not a murder machine, right?” he asks.

“You do realize being a whole person doesn’t suddenly negate being a serial killer, right?” Steve asks back and Bucky sighs.

“I’m not an idiot, I obviously know that and frankly it’s patronizing to pretend like I don’t. But what exactly do you expect me to pour my time into? You’re never here, and spending a lot of time researching one topic for an extended period of time isn’t out of the ordinary for me. The only difference is that this time I get to talk to who I’m researching.” And if he could talk to Mothman he damn well would have. It would have resulted in a lot of ‘eeee’ing from Mothman rather than a productive conversation but still.

“I don’t know Bucky, maybe not reduce most of your socialization to talking to a fucking _murderer_? Have you even considered how that’ll affect you?” Steve asks.

Maybe he’s right, but he hasn’t met Tony either. “You act like every bit of interaction he engages in indicates he’s killed people. The guy is pretty normal, Steve, and the only reason you don’t like it, and the reason no one else likes it, is because supposedly evil people being completely indistinguishable from the rest of us is _terrifying_. But that’s reality- evil doesn’t exist and even if you’ve shown a great capacity for disregarding human life that doesn’t mean that’s _all_ you are.”

Steve throws his hands up, “why are you defending a _serial killer_!” he snaps.

Bucky lets out a sharp sigh. “Because that’s not even the whole of who he is in the context of the crimes he committed! I get that you don’t understand my interest, and I get that you think this is some kind of toxic… thing but it isn’t. It’s me doing what I always do when I find a new obsession- I crawl down the rabbit hole until there’s no where else to go but up and then I find a new hole. This isn’t new.” Or unusual, or anything else Steve has never seen before so Bucky doesn’t get why he’s worried.

“Well this time your interest talks back and I just want to make sure you’re okay,” he says softly.

“Lecturing me isn’t helping,” Bucky tells him. “Can you pass me the tape?” he asks, gesturing across the bed. Steve looks at him for a moment and for a second Bucky wonders if he’ll press his point, but he doesn’t. Instead he walks across the room and collects the tape, tossing it to Bucky.

*

“God, you have the attention span of a snail. I have a life outside of you, you know,” Bucky tells Tony. Calling, he figures, is going to be a new habit and he’s about to give Tony office hours because he actually _does_ have a life and it does strike him as odd that he’s eating and also talking to a serial killer. Its only ramen but still- feels a little too Hannibal for him though Tony has no tendencies towards eating people. Thank _god_ because Bucky can only stomach so much. It’s a weird line to draw but its there.

Tony laughs, “I’m aware, but I am reliably selfish so I don’t really care,” he says.

“Is prison seriously that boring?” he asks because he’s kind of always imagined people in prison were more interesting than people outside prison. Especially where Tony is kept.

“Did… did you seriously just ask if being kept in a fucking human cage is _boring_? I don’t even get the benefit of bars, I’m kept behind a steel door with a tiny little window that’s barely bigger than my eyes,” he says.

“You could talk to inmates. They’ve probably got interesting stories to tell,” Bucky points out.

“Yeah, fuck that,” Tony says in a definitive tone.

Bucky sighs. “Tony. I have shit to do.”

“Like?” Tony prompts.

“Getting groceries for one. I’m starving. Also I need new sweaters,” he says. All his have holes in them and the one without any holes is an ugly shade of blue. Actually he’s not fond of _any_ shade of blue try as Steve might to get him to like the color but baby blue is especially offensive to his corneas. And also ramen, while good enough to eat, is not exactly a food to live off of and his body is begging for vegetables. He can always tell when he’s gone too long without them because he starts feeling like shit. Aging has crap side effects.

“You seriously want to buy Triscuits over talking to me? That hurts,” Tony tells him.

“Triscuits are on sale,” he murmurs, recalling the knowledge from flyers he read earlier. Grocery apps, useful things. Especially if places price match.

“Jesus I can’t believe I’ve been shafted for a cracker. Come _on_ ,” Tony says.

Bucky rolls his eyes with far less irritation than he should feel but he’s always hated grocery shopping. Though he has to admit that procrastinating on grocery shopping by talking to a serial killer really is a new level of weird and probably fucked up for him. “Is there any specific _reason_ you called? Because I have phone bills you know. And they’re going to be astronomically high given that apparently people can be charged for talking to inmates.” What kind of garbage is that? Why should relatives have to pay actual dollars to talk to prisoners because their dumb bitch cousin is in prison?

“How much do you need?” he asks and Bucky lets out a long sigh.

“I don’t need your money, Tony,” he tells him. Not entirely true but also.

“Ha, yeah, you’re a poor college student so something tells me you do. How much do you need?” he asks again.

“No idea, its not like I’ve got the bill yet. The reason you called?” he asks.

“I’m a simple man- boredom is easily cured by the sound of your voice,” he says like that explains anything.

“Your fellow inmates don’t have pleasant voices?” Because he sure shit doesn’t. Sam once told him he had the voice of ten thousand screaming urchins and he doesn’t know what that means because urchins don’t have mouths that he knows of, but the energy of that sentence rings true.

“If they do its utterly wasted on threatening to kill each other over a banana. That’s so unsophisticated,” he mumbles.

Sometimes Bucky really wonders how Tony’s mind works. Okay, _most_ of the time he wonders that. But now he especially wonders. “To be fair if I were hungry enough I might threaten to kill a man over a banana too. I did one time threaten Sam with ripping his eyelids off if he ate my pixie sticks,” he says.

Tony makes a disgusted noise, “you have awful taste in candy. _Pixie sticks_? At least give Sam’s eyelids a better candy to be ripped off over.”

“Yeah, pixie sticks are disgusting but it was the principal of the thing,” Bucky says. And also it was _Sam_. He’s made worse threats for less when Steve isn’t around to whine at them.

“Are you sure you should be in psychology? Because you seem kind of like you need therapy more than you should be the one giving it,” Tony tells him.

“I’m not qualified to council people so rest assured the public will not be subjected to me. Just you. And also I’m not trying to council you and you don’t seem to feel bad about your crimes anyway. Probably not a good candidate for rehabilitation.” Tony feels bad about his previous involvement in _weapons_ but not serial killing, Bucky guesses. And sure he can see why he’s made the distinction given that he seems to think his victims were deserving in a way the people affected by his weapons weren’t, but still.

“I told you, they had it coming. Do you seriously like Triscuits because those are disgusting too,” Tony says.

Bucky looks over his murder board, at the small list of people that don’t, by any means, seem to have been guilty of anything. “ _All_ your victims had it coming? You were never tempted to just… pick a person off for funsies? And no, I don’t like Triscuits but I’ll buy what’s on sale,” he says.

“No. To wanting to pick random people off. I’ve read a lot of books on serial killers and people treat us like we’re ticking time bombs hurtling towards murder or whatever. We aren’t, or I’m not anyway. I chose my victims carefully and for a reason, I’m not so sloppy that I’d break habit,” Tony says.

“You’re offended I’ve questioned your methods,” Bucky states more than asks.

Tony lets out a small noise of irritation. “Somewhat. I don’t get it with people, you aren’t the first, who just _decide_ that killing someone must mean its indiscriminate, and that it’s a compulsion. Something I can’t help. That’s stupid- its not an addiction, its something I actively chose to do,” he says.

Actually that’s something Bucky knows about serial killers, that they don’t tend to break pattern and that they don’t kill because they need to. That’s a myth of crime shows for, as far as Bucky can tell, no other reason but to raise the stakes of a story. But that does, once again, make Bucky wonder what an upper class white woman could have in common with the local gang leader three states away. Those two people don’t seem the type to have _anything_ in common let alone the rest of the victims. Aside, maybe, that none of them were below the age of twenty-one. “Any thoughts on _why_? I mean aside from the motive I’m tracking down,” he adds.

He’s surprised when Tony pauses, clearly considering his words. “I’ve wondered why too. Everyone has wanted to kill someone at some point, and despite what people might claim we _love_ to see people suffer. All the violence in our media says that clear enough. But fiction and fantasy tends to be as far as anyone goes with this sort of thing. Even people who have an interest in serial killers don’t tend to harbor any notion on becoming one. So why did I graduate from fantasy to reality?” he muses more to himself than Bucky.

“Guess that depends on what you get out of reality that you don’t get out of fantasy,” Bucky says. “People engage in violent media as catharsis- obviously that doesn’t work for you.”

Tony hums a little, “I guess not. But I’ve never really cared for violent media anyway. Horror movies are absolutely not my thing and video games… I figure them out too fast. They don’t hold my attention. Action movies are fun, but that’s mostly because things blow up,” he says.

God, _that’s_ why he likes action? Bucky wrinkles his nose. “You have poor movie taste. That’s curious though, that you don’t have any interest in violent media. Any interest in any other violent things? You don’t have a pre-existing criminal record but lets be real, you could have paid your way into a clean record,” he says.

“No. Well, there was this dog once. I read too many things about serial killers and we’re supposed to like killing animals but the dog didn’t do anything, and its family probably misses it, and it was soft. That uh, wasn’t really enjoyable. Mostly I felt bad- what’d the dog ever do to me? Or anyone else? And I’m not much violent elsewhere in life. I’ve never felt the need to hold a ‘beatings will continue until you do what I tell you to’ mentality with people I like. Or most people I dislike,” he says. That Bucky knows given his famous rivalry with one Justin Hammer, whom Tony mostly finds new and clever ways to irritate.

“You felt bad? For the dog,” Bucky clarifies. “Why? I mean, that’s awful, I love dogs, but what’s the difference to you?” The dog certainly got more pity than any of his victims, and the detail about the dog being soft is interesting if a little horrifying. The implication is that Tony pet it and Bucky doesn’t want to consider when on account of feeling awful for the poor dog.

Tony hums, “aside from the dog doing nothing but existing? Its distasteful, killing animals. And easy to do when they don’t know they’re being hunted. They also don’t do the evil shit humans do and when they do its because they don’t have higher brain function,” Tony says and that’s curious.

“So to you, if I’m getting this right, the difference is that animals are innocent, basically? In a way that your victims weren’t.”

“Yeah. Also dogs are cute. I’m more of a cat person, but dogs are still lovely creatures and it was a dick move to kill one,” he says. The words are flippant but Bucky can hear the guilt there.

“So what is it that you get out of reality of killing people that fantasy doesn’t do for you?” Bucky asks. “Because that’s the difference, I think. Most people are satisfied with only wishing people dead, or fantasizing about it until the anger runs low. Obviously what you needed out of any fantasies you had- if you had any at all- weren’t being met.”

Tony snorts, going along with the change in subject easily. “Of course I had fantasies, everyone does. I don’t think mine were um, normal, though. It occurs to me that most people don’t tend to meticulously plan out murders in their heads the way I did. They just seem to have vague fantasies about people being hurt. The fantasies though… they were,” he pauses, considering his words. “Flaccid, I guess, in a way reality wasn’t.”

Bucky can’t help but snort, “little on the nose there, Freud,” he says and Tony lets out an annoyed noise.

“Freud was a nutty coke head who couldn’t theorize himself out of a paper-” his words are cut off and Bucky frowns until he pulls the phone from his ear. Its been an hour, which he guesses is the amount of time Tony gets to talk on the phone. He should ask about that, how he likes the extra freedoms.

It must be hell, living in his conditions, and honestly Bucky doesn’t think its wise to torment a genius serial killer. Those two things separately are mostly irrelevant in prison, but stick them together and it really does seem like a recipe for murder. Though Tony doesn’t stray from his pattern so maybe not.

*

Its total chance that Bucky gets an interesting tidbit of information from one of the victim’s family members. Her kid, if Bucky recalls right, and the email is scathing but telling. The general consensus was _no_ , he had no interest in talking to Bucky, but the fact that he called his mother’s killer a saint and suggested in a pretty clear way that his mother had abused him was curious.

It’s not exactly uncommon in the victims he’s drawn connections between, child abuse, but it only shows up on the records of a few. Plenty more, once Tony fell into a habit of going after much more high-risk targets, have no record at all. But most of them come from money too, and Bucky is familiar with what money can buy a person so he sends out a few more emails. It’s the victims that don’t have any kids or criminal records that have him extra confused.

“Bucky,” Steve says, making Bucky jump in surprise. “Please don’t tell me you were watching porn,” he says, wrinkling his nose. “Or anything to do with Tony fucking Stark. Seriously, its creepy that you spend so much time on this.”

Its his damn thesis, he wants to say, but they’ve had this argument too many times already so he keeps that to himself. “I’m contacting the victim’s families, actually. One responded and wasn’t pleased I tracked him down. Can’t say I blame him.” The media circus after Tony was… turned himself in must have been hell.

Steve softens at that, and Bucky knew he would, because he tends to care more about those left in the carnage than the person who caused the carnage. Steve’s soft like that. “Oh. Well, I can’t say I blame him either. Want pizza? Sam refuses to order gluten free crust so you can share,” he says.

Bucky wrinkles his nose hard, “I would rather swallow fifteen hornets than even _think_ of sharing food with Sam,” he says, nose in the air.

“Oh my god, he said he’d rather live through Get Out than share food with you. You two need to get over yourselves,” Steve says but his words are fond.

“I’d rather him live through Get Out too,” Bucky mumbles, then reconsiders. “But without the racism.”

Steve frowns, “the movie doesn’t work without the racism,” he points out.

“Fine, he can go through a normal slasher. Texas Chainsaw Massacre or whatever.” He’d say Psycho but he likes Psycho so no.

“For fucks sake, get off your computer and order a pizza with Sam,” Steve tells him.

If that’s what Steve wants, fine, he can do that. He sets his computer aside and walks out of the room, finding Sam on the couch with his laptop in his lap. “I want pineapple and anchovies,” he says, choosing the two most controversial toppings he can think of. Pineapple he likes, actually, but he’s never even considered anchovies. He’ll be damned if he doesn’t make Sam suffer though.

He knows right away that he’s made a mistake when Sam looks him dead in the eye. “Okay,” he says and Bucky has dug his own grave.

*

Bucky looks like he’s swallowed a lemon and Tony is curious as to why. “Someone piss in your cereal this morning?” he asks and Bucky wrinkles his nose further.

“No. I just happened to be out pettied by the pettiest person I know and I had to out do him back but that meant eating pineapple and anchovies on pizza and there were leftovers so I had to eat that too. To establish dominance,” he says like that’s a good excuse.

Tony almost tells him he’s now refusing to cooperate because people can’t just _do_ that to his people’s food. Italians didn’t make pizza for some dumb ass Canadian to stick pineapple on it and fuck knows who stuck _anchovies_ on pizza but he hopes they were publically drawn and quartered for their crimes against food.

“You asked if I’ve ever made an exception to my usual pattern and let me tell you, I have never been so tempted as I am in this moment. You disgust me,” he says honestly but he feels bad when Bucky looks hurt. “I’m Italian,” he says as an explanation and Bucky must accept it because he relaxes some.

“Yeah, I barbarically decimated your people’s food with the anchovies but I wanted Sam to suffer and then he agreed and I couldn’t back down. He ate half of it so like, kill him. Sam is the worst,” he says, apparently forgetting that he’s talking to someone who _has_ killed people. Tony can guarantee if he actually agreed to it Bucky would backtrack on that _fast_.

“Why? Do you hate Sam, I mean,” he says.

It seems to throw Bucky for a loop, which is weird but whatever. “I um. I don’t know, I just hated the guy on sight and my stupid best friend had to go fall in love with him and we’ve been hoping the other one gets hit by a bus or a freak meteorite since we met. Also, he thinks budgies are good pets and budgies are the most annoying bird to exist.”

Tony frowns, “you… don’t know why you told an _actual_ serial killer to kill a man?” he asks. “Though, for his crimes against pizza, I’ll consider it.”

Poor Bucky, Tony’s guess that Bucky had briefly forgotten that he’s deadly must be right if the look on his face is any indication. Funny, considering that’s the entire reason he’s here. But Tony knows that people think of killers as things that go bump in the night, people who look creepy, someone you can immediately spot as someone to avoid. Of course plenty of serial killers aren’t like that at all, and some are even attractive. Tony’s kind of tired of being compared to Ted fucking Bundy all because they share not being hideous and having a certain level of charm though.

It really is stupid; the myth people build up around serial killers and how they work all in an attempt to make themselves feel better. And safer, once they’re caught. Bucky should know better, but even the smartest of people can get caught up in cultural assumptions and Tony knows he does seem more human than what people would expect. Probably because they all but expect a literal monster.

“You probably can’t say why you hate Justin Hammer so much,” Bucky says, recovering somewhat fast from his misstep.

Tony rolls his eyes, “I hate him because he’s an incompetent _weasel_ who’s only successful because he’s riding on his daddy’s coat tails,” he says.

“Ever been tempted to kill him?” Bucky asks and yeah, _obviously_. It would save him a lot of trouble.

“Sure, but as much of a slimy fuck as he is he’s not really worth the cover up efforts.” And there would be plenty of them, and also Tony would more than likely be a suspect in the murder, which would have been messy for a whole other set of reasons. Not that it mattered given that he turned himself in but he hadn’t known he was going to do that when he decided Hammer wasn’t worth his time.

Bucky shrugs, “makes sense. Still, hate at first sight is real and Sam is my sworn enemy. I knew it as soon as I saw his stupid rat face. Anyway, that’s irrelevant. I’m actually excited, I think I found something new,” he says, grinning happily.

Tony raises an eyebrow because he’s curious. “Well, don’t leave me hanging,” he says when Bucky doesn’t continue.

He gets a brief laugh from Bucky before he pulls a file out of his bag. “I uh, sent out a few inquiry emails to victims family members. Didn’t expect to hear much but by now I’ve gotten three responses and they all follow the same general pattern. Namely telling me to fuck off, which I think is fair, but then they either outright state or otherwise imply that they aren’t angry with you. One called you a saint. And they all either out right stated or implied that they didn’t have good relationships with your victims, enough to be straight up happy that their family member is dead. Anything to say about that?” he asks.

He considers Bucky for a moment before the corners of his lips turn up. “I’m impressed you found anything from relatives or friends, but that’s only three people,” he points out.

Bucky shrugs, “more, if I look at people with prior offenses with children, which is almost everyone with a criminal record in your victim pool. Did I find a random pattern that _happens_ to fit a few people or did I find _the_ pattern?” he asks and they both know what he means.

Tony considers making him work harder for the answer, but the truth is that he’s already managed to figure out more than any of the people who’ve investigated him. Tony doesn’t know if he should think highly of Bucky or if he should consider the police and later the FBI fucking useless. Its not like the pattern wasn’t _there_ in plain sight enough that a random PhD student who eats _Triscuits_ if they’re on sale managed to figure it out. And if Bucky, who has mostly nothing at his disposal, can figure this out than he would expect expert law enforcement to figure it out too.

“Yeah, you figured it out. Congrats,” Tony tells him, genuinely impressed.

To his credit Bucky looks dumbfounded because that was actually a shot in the dark. Something like what, eighteen people fitting that pattern from his total count? Not super compelling but he’s not wrong, and there’s still a lot more to find. That, though, Tony doesn’t think Bucky will get access to. _He’d_ had to work to get to the information he wanted let alone Bucky. And some people were easier to find out than others.

“But wait, what? What about the victims with no kids- I mean I contacted immediate family members and friends from a few families and the ones that responded happened to be family, but that doesn’t account for the victims with no kids,” he says and Tony laughs.

“You don’t need to have kids to hurt them,” he points out and Bucky frowns.

“I can’t recall any victim that didn’t have kids but also worked with them,” he says like that matters.

“Most people know someone with kids, Bucky. Its not exactly hard to find a few to victimize.” Less so, he thinks, when people are stupid enough to ignore all the creepy shit their family does to their kids on account of them being family. Or friends, depended on who it was.

Bucky absorbs that for a minute, considering. “So its kids then, specifically. That your victims hurt,” he clarifies and Tony nods. Bucky allows himself another few moments of shock before frowning, “how come you gave that up so easy? I thought you were all about hard work,” he says.

“You _have_ done hard work Bucky, consider this your reward,” he says even though he’s got other plans for a real reward.


	6. Chapter 6

Bucky doesn’t really know what to do with himself now that he’s got motive figured out. That’d been half the purpose of this, right, and now it’s gone so what’s he supposed to do? He’s mostly trying to figure out dinner when Steve walks in and hands him an envelope, “here. Also, Sam sends his regards,” he says like he doesn’t know Sam is being a massive prick.

“Tell Sam to sit on a cactus,” he says, pulling the envelope out of Steve’s hand and frowning at it. No return address and it doesn’t seem to hold anything. Weird.

Steve sighs and Bucky recognizes that sigh so he looks up to find Steve with his arms crossed looking quite like a pissed off dandelion with his blonde hair all over the place. “Why do you and Sam hate each other so much?” he asks, reminding him strangely of Tony. Funny considering how _wildly_ different they are in literally every way.

“Because Sam is a cockthistle,” Bucky says, having no other better explanation. Its not as if Sam is a genuinely shit person, he’s not by any stretch. If Sam weren’t Sam Bucky would genuinely like him but Sam _is_ Sam so Bucky can’t stand him.

“That’s not an answer. I know you know Sam is a great guy, what the hell is with you two hating each other?” Steve looks stressed but Bucky really doesn’t have an answer.

“Don’t know, Steve. Want macaroni?” he asks.

Steve wrinkles his nose but agrees anyway. “I think you should give Sam a chance,” he adds and Bucky laughs.

“I will never give a man a chance when he all but forced me to eat anchovies and pineapple on pizza. That’s an unforgivable act. A war crime,” Bucky says, shaking his head.

“You spend regular time with a serial killer and _Sam_ is someone you can’t stand? You make no sense,” Steve says but for once its lacking the judgment that’s usually there.

“Tony has intrigue, Sam gives me hives,” Bucky says and Steve starts laughing.

“Have you ever even _had_ hives?” he asks, probably familiar with them in a way Bucky isn’t given that Steve’s allergic to everything.

“Not until I met Sam,” Bucky says, nose in the air and Steve shakes his head.

“God, I don’t know what it is with you two. I thought you’d like each other but no, you two had to prove me wrong in the _worst_ of ways.”

Well, if Sam wasn’t the black plague personified maybe Bucky would have liked him but no, he’s the downfall of the human race and that just makes him unlikable.

*

When Bucky remembers the envelope its right before he’s about to go to bed and it falls out of his jeans pockets. He picks it up, frowns, and turns it over in his hands before ripping it open not that that solves the mystery. What’s inside kind of looks like a key card to a hotel and that’s… weird. There’s nothing on it to indicate what its use is, if it _is_ a hotel key card, or something else so he sets it aside to figure out later. By the time he wakes up in the morning he’s completely forgotten about it.

He’s on his way to class when he gets intercepted by, of all people, Natasha. “Jumpy, Barnes. Hanging out with what goes bump in the night getting to you?” she asks, grinning.

“No, you just came out of nowhere like some kind of weirdo, _that’s_ what got to me,” he tells her, shaking his head. She seems to find that amusing but doesn’t comment on it further.

“I do a podcast on serial killers- since you spend regular time with one I figured you’d be a good subject to interview,” she says, jumping straight into it.

Well okay, definitely not how he thought his morning would go. “You… run a podcast on serial killers,” he states more than asks and Natasha raises an eyebrow.

“Does that shock you? It shouldn’t considering how we met,” she points out.

Yeah okay, good point but still. “What exactly will this entail?” he asks. That seems like a good place to start, figuring out what the expectations are.

“Talking about Stark, genius. We all have the basic facts of the case, but you have something different so you have more to offer than Wanda and I,” she says.

“Wanda?” he asks.

“My partner in crime in all this. Seriously, why do you look so shocked?” Most likely because he’s not used to people sharing his interests but alright.

He sighs, “sure, I guess.” Might as well put his strange amount of knowledge to the test.

Natasha looks enthused, “excellent, I’ll call you,” she says and he frowns as she walks off.

“You don’t even have my number!” he calls after her.

A few moments after she rounds the corner of a building his phone rings and he pulls it from his pocket, a little freaked out about the timing only to see a number he doesn’t recognize. “Uh, hello?” he asks, answering only because of the strange timing of the call.

“Oh, so you’re not one of those Millennials that’s allergic to the phone, good to know,” Natasha says and Bucky sighs.

“Normally I only answer it if its my mother or I recognize the number but the timing was- wait, how the hell did you get my number?” he asks and Natasha laughs.

“I have my ways,” she tells him and hangs up. He sighs, deciding his day is destined to be weird.

He’s making his way to class when his phone rings again and he sighs, picking it up and finding a familiar number on it. “Do you even know how to be convenient? I’m on my way to class,” Bucky tells Tony.

“Am I interrupting grocery shopping again?” Tony asks casually.

Bucky sighs, “no you’re, perhaps ironically, interrupting my psychology of evil class,” he tells Tony.

The noise Tony makes tells Bucky all he needs to know about what he thinks of _that_ but he doesn’t say anything about it, not directly anyway. “Since you answered I assume you’re not fond of the class,” he says and Bucky spares the building he’s supposed to be in a look, debating on whether or not he should hang up.

“Not especially no. My prof is an asshole,” he says. They regularly argue and Bucky’s pretty sure his classmates find it amusing but he doesn’t. Neither does Dipshit Prof when Bucky starts citing sources.

“Oh, I love academic disagreements. It’s like five people in a room and they’re all being catty about some weirdly specific thing that only they give a shit about,” Tony says wistfully. Weird thing to miss about academia but whatever.

“Yeah, this is more like ten people in a room where two of them are battling it out and the other eight make popcorn to watch the ensuing battle,” he mumbles. He doesn’t like being other people’s entertainment but he likes idiot opinions less.

Tony laughs, “what is it that you dislike about your prof so much, hm?” he asks and Bucky can hear the genuine interest there.

The answer, though, is complicated. “People… don’t like people they consider evil, but don’t seem to know their standards are subjective. I mean without a doubt there’s some common sense evil shit out there, but the people who do that stuff are still human. They still have complicated reasons for their behavior even if none of that excuses their actions. My prof doesn’t seem to like to remember that people who commit heinous crimes aren’t Disney villains; they’re more complicated than that. So less like Maleficent and more like Frollo.”

“Frollo was one fucked up asshole,” Tony says and Bucky laughs.

“Of course he was- but he was still a character with reasons and motivations that mostly centered around a heavily skewed morality system, religious views gone awry, and a massive sense of entitlement. Besides, people only dehumanize supposedly evil people because they don’t want to admit that they also hold great capacity to do horrific things,” he says. The Nuremburg Defense is probably a great example of that- people who committed some of the worst crimes in recent history because they were told to by authority figures. People don’t like to admit that they may very well have been those people rather than the people who resisted.

“And what about you, hmm? Do you think you hold a great capacity for evil?” Tony asks. From anyone else that question, especially in the context of an academic discussion, might not have made him think all that hard. But the fact that Tony _is_ a person with a genuinely high ability to commit heinous crimes, and to not feel bad about them at _all_ either, makes his answer somewhat more complicated. Or the way he words it, anyway.

“Of course I do,” Bucky says eventually. “I certainly wasn’t _born_ with any desire to hurt people, and I never developed that desire later, but everyone has limits be it a type of person they think deserves what they get like you or a psychological limit where they break. Anyone who claims they’ll never do something they consider evil is a liar or they’re deluded. We’re all capable of doing horrible things if we’re stretched and pulled the right way.” Hell, Steve is probably the most moral person he knows and even he had an interest in joining the army for a long time. An organization with a troubled past to say the least and one that gets a state sanctioned license to kill, but Steve had looked past that to see the potential benefits of the military. _Everyone_ , given the right set of circumstances, has the capacity to be evil as people tend to define it.

Tony lets out a soft laugh, “most would disagree,” he says.

Bucky rolls his eyes, “but if I told them it was a pedophile they’re killing they’d be fine with murder more often than not. Can’t say I can bring myself to pity the pedophile, but I’m not entirely comfortable with _murder_ to solve that problem either. But a lot of people disagree with me there- you certainly would- and maybe not for bad reasons either. People are complicated in a way we rarely think ourselves to be.”

Tony lets out a soft hum, quite likely in agreement given his victim pool, but changes the subject. “How’s Jarvis?” he asks and Bucky frowns.

“Jarvis?” Who the hell is that?

“Oh come on, really? When you figure it out, let me know,” Tony tells him.

*

Steve is arguing with Sam when he gets home and whirls to face him. “Tell him that the Harry Potter movies are garbage!” he says, clearly incensed about this and honestly Bucky wonders what Sam did to piss him off this much.

“The Harry Potter movies are garbage,” Bucky tells him, pleased enough to insult Sam whether or not he agrees.

Sam throws his hands up, “this fucker doesn’t know shit about Harry Potter, all he reads are books on weird UFO cults and Ted Bundy. His opinion isn’t valid,” Sam says.

He’s not wrong, Bucky hasn’t read the books or seen the movies due to his interest in all those Alistair Crowley documentaries. “The books are better than the movies!” Steve all but shrieks and _oh_ , there’s the problem. Steve is a Book Purist and Sam has stepped on his toes about it. “Bucky agrees,” he adds, triumphant.

Sam rolls his eyes, “what’s Snape’s redemption arc?” he asks. He looks smug too, so Bucky assumes Snape is a hero and doesn’t have one.

“Snape has no redemption arc,” he says and Steve, who Bucky only just realizes looks tense, relaxes.

“Because Snape was a _creep_ till the end!” he says and oh shit, Bucky guessed wrong but in a twist of events he’s so wrong he’s right. Damn, he’s impressed with himself.

“That was a lucky guess!” Sam says, guessing totally right but Bucky pretends like he totally knows what he’s talking about anyway.

“Who’s Peter Pettigrew?” he asks, correctly assuming Bucky doesn’t know Harry Potter lore.

“A rat ass bitch,” Bucky says for humor more than anything but Sam looks so surprised he guesses he’s right again that Bucky assumes that genuinely _is_ right. Steve looks absolutely vindicated but Bucky is mostly confused.

“Who’s the guy Dumbledore was supposedly gay with?” Sam snaps at Bucky.

“Grindelwald,” Bucky says, knowing the answer because Steve spent _weeks_ complaining about Johnny Depp playing him. Though Bucky’s seen the pictures and agrees with Steve- there is no fresh hell in which _Jude Law_ would fuck someone who looks like meth rode him hard and put him up wet, and with a bad dye job to boot.

Sam throws his hands up, “I damn well _know_ you’ve never seen Harry Potter so how are you getting these answers right?” he asks, then squints, turning to Steve. “You’re feeding him the answers!” he says.

Steve gives him a _look_ , “oh, who’s the conspiracy theorist now, _Sam_ ,” he says, saying Sam’s name like it’s the nastiest insult he can think of.

Bucky decides to leave them to have at it, figuring at some point Sam will get tired and apologize to Steve and allow him to be right just like he always does when they argue about dumb shit like this. In the meantime he’ll check his email and see if anyone has sent anything interesting.

He’s got his laptop open while he roots around in his desk drawer for gum he’s _sure_ he left in there when a ping from the computer makes him jump. What really freaks him out is when he turns around to find that weird card thing glowing on his night stand though. He looks at it for a long moment, “CIA man if you’re listening, I would prefer you do not,” he says to the empty space of his room. Nothing happens because the CIA man is obviously not going to out his position so Bucky creeps back over to his computer so see why it’s dinging and if its related to the glowing key card or if that’s a weird coincidence.

He’s kind of pissed he watched those weird YouTube videos that theorized Tony is secretly an alien because this feels like its lifted straight from Close Encounters of The Third Kind minus a UFO outside his window. Which is all kinds of creepy.

Its not, the computer is asking him to trust a device, the card if the little picture is correct, and Bucky has no idea what to make of that. “This better not get me a virus,” he mumbles and clicks ‘trust’ mostly to see what happens. If he gets some Russian bot takeover on his computer he’ll be able to fix shit, probably. Better than aliens.

The computer dings again and a little message pops up with, of all things, an address. Bucky frowns at it for a moment and takes a picture on his phone before hitting the ‘next’ button. It’s a good thing he thought to take a picture too, because he can’t go back. Well shit. The next page informs him of a ten thousand dollar deposit into his bank account and _yeah_ those numbers are right but… there’s no fucking way. There’s _no_ way. So he does the only logical thing he can think of to do and checks his account.

There’s tend grand in there, plus the ten cents that was left over until his next pay day and holy _shit_. What the fuck _is_ this thing? He stares at his account balance for a long moment before shaking his head, going back to the screen that’s obviously connected to the card and clicks ‘next.’ The screen exists and the card stops glowing so he frowns, grabbing the card and flipping it over. Nothing indicates its even something that _could_ glow even if he watched it with his own two eyes. What the fuck?

He looks up, considers telling Steve, but he’s still arguing with Sam about Harry Potter so he decides to punch in the address he picked up from the card on Google Maps to see how far it is away from where he’s living. Surprisingly close, actually, by transit but what the fuck? He’s examining the routes to what appears to be a small house when his computer screen does some funky glitch shit and freezes for a half a moment before a bunch of files start being opened out of nowhere. In the corner of the screen a small notification appears reading ‘J.A.R.V.I.S connected’ and what the flying _ass_ did he like… piss off the FBI or some shit? It takes him a minute to remember Tony’s question.

 _How’s Jarvis_?


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a short boi but good!

This is the worst idea he’s ever had, fucking hunting down some serial killer’s lair presumably. There better not be blood, he can’t handle that shit. Reading about heinous things happening to people? Sure. _Seeing_ evidence of it? Vomit inducing. This is awful, the worst. Bucky has no idea why he’s here and he has that stupid card and he can’t seem to uninstall JARVIS and he doesn’t even know if that’s how it _works_ because he doesn’t even know what JARVIS _is_.

So he stands at the door of a small house, somewhat out of the way of the actual suburb its in. Sleepy area, doesn’t seem to get a lot of traffic. Pretty good local for _killing_ people and this is so not how Bucky wanted to spend his afternoon. Also, he has no idea how to get in so he pulls the card from his pocket, frowning at it for a long moment before trying to see if there’s a place where it could go but the damn door is normal so that’s a fat no. Or at least he thinks it is until the deadbolt unlocks and he jumps. Oh, fuck _sakes_. He reaches out slowly, carefully turning the knob and getting no resistance to its time to go in he guesses and oh _god_ this is the worst.

It doesn’t occur to him that if this is where Tony killed people there could be a fucking _corpse_ no one found in it until he’s inside with the door shut and he wrinkles his whole face. “God, please tell me there’s no dead people here,” he mumbles more to himself than anything but when a voice responds he’s more than a little surprised.

“There are no bodies here, sir.” And that’s it for Bucky; he faints on the spot, not even managing to hold consciousness until he hits the ground.

*

When Bucky wakes up its to a redhead looking down at him and he shrieks, earning a sharp slap for his efforts. “What was that for?” he yells, sounding far too much like a scared twelve year old girl for his liking.

“You scared the hell out of me!” the redhead snaps. “You don’t scream at people, Jesus!”

“Well you don’t lean over people while they’re passed out and then slap them about it,” Bucky counters. “Where the hell’s the guy?” he asks after a beat, remembering the voice that had creepily informed him of a lack of dead bodies.

“Oh, JARVIS is an AI. And we’ve _had_ this discussion J, don’t talk to people until they know what you are,” the woman adds, looking up at the ceiling with an exasperated look on her face. What the _fuck_. “And I’m Pepper Potts, if you didn’t recognize me,” she adds.

Pepper- oh, he feels stupid now but he relaxes at least. He should have recognized her right away but given the circumstances he thinks he can be forgiven. “What the hell is this? And how do I get JARVIS off my computer?” he asks.

“If you’re worried I’ll judge your pornography habits I can inform you I have absolutely seen worse,” the AI tells him.

“Is that fucking comforting to you?” he asks, looking up at the ceiling.

“It should be, you seriously have no idea what poor JARVIS has been subjected to. Come on, get up,” Pepper tells him, gracefully standing. Yeah, okay, there’s no dead people here, just a creepy AI and Tony’s former assistant that Bucky now knows _must_ have been involved in his crimes given her presence here.

He pulls himself off the ground, “ _can_ I get JARVIS off my computer?” he asks, figuring that’s a more appropriate question.

Pepper shakes her head, “no. Tony is very… suspicious,” she says eventually.

Bucky sighs, “great, okay. What the fuck is this?” he asks and Pepper sighs.

“Of course you don’t know either. Once again Tony _fails_ at communication,” she mumbles, shaking her head. This isn’t the first time she’s been in this situation, Bucky can tell, but what does this all _mean_?

“You helped him cover it all up,” he states, not asks, but Pepper shakes her head.

“No, I stayed out of it- kept quiet about everything. JARVIS is the accomplice,” she says and holy _hell_ okay there _was_ someone else. Some _thing_ else given that JARVIS isn’t human.

“Care to elaborate on that um, JARVIS?” Bucky asks, looking at the ceiling.

If the AI were human Bucky would consider the pause almost thoughtful, like he’s considering whether or not he wants to say anything but this is an AI so there’s probably like… lag time or something. “I kept close track of all video feeds, media responses, and information releases,” the AI tells him, sounding almost prim.

Bucky shakes his head. “There’s a lot more to that than I know, I’m sure. And you didn’t help?” he asks Pepper, who rolls her eyes at him but nods. “Then how’d you find out and why’d you keep quiet?” Tony doesn’t seem much like the type to kill unnecessarily but he’s not a fool either, Pepper would have been a messy loose end to keep around so why bother?

Pepper considers her answer for a long time, “truth be told I don’t know- why I stuck around I mean. Why I didn’t tell,” she sighs, “Tony was meticulous in ensuring that his suspicions about people were right- he had no interest in repeating what he viewed as past mistakes,” she says. They both know she means his time in weapons development and design. “When I… the power had gone out, some twelve or so years ago. Tony’s lab space was obviously set to run on a generator and JARVIS would have made a smooth transition so he wouldn’t have noticed. But JARVIS’s eyes were out on every other part of that building so when I went to see if Tony was alright in the lab I… ran into a memory I really wish I didn’t have. He was going to kill me, I’m sure, but the look on his face,” she shakes her head. “I know he didn’t want to. So I did what I thought would save me and tried to barter. Given how easily he gave in to me he was obviously hoping I’d do _something_ , give him some reason not to kill me. I know it sounds stupid, but I’m not a fool- I know what I saw-”

Bucky cuts off her rambling. “I know what you saw too- Tony’s not some mindless monster looking to kill people because he wants to,” though there are plenty of killers who are like that, “and he does genuinely feel empathy. And you’re not his type.”

Pepper relaxes some, letting the tension out of her frame. “I know it sounds bad, and I don’t agree with his methods but that woman,” Pepper makes a disgusted noise. “No one could watch what she did to that poor child and feel much pity for how she met her end,” she says.

“He bugged people’s houses?” he asks. He’d wondered how he got information on his victims- its not like he had all that much time in a day the man was in public _constantly_.

“No,” Pepper says, shaking her head. “They bugged their own houses when they installed his security systems. He just had JARVIS comb through them.”

Bucky raises an eyebrow, “no fucking _shit_? _Seriously_?” he asks. He’d wondered about that too, how he found his victims but they tend to run in similar social circles. But it does make sense, in a way, given his victim pool. Only the rich would be able to afford his systems anyway, then they all but _walked_ him into their houses and stuck targets on their backs.

Pepper nods. “Efficient, letting JARVIS handle evidence collection and victim monitoring. He had a company to run, its not like he had the time to do all that himself,” she points out. “And I refused to help. I might keep quiet about his hobbies but I refuse to be a part of them,” she says, shaking her head in disgust.

“The victims in the beginning, how’d he find them?” he asks. Sure, quite a few of the higher level criminals out of the original fifteen had money but none of them had security systems- all that was in police reports. And the rest were mostly poor or almost middle class- not the target market for Stark security systems.

“Tony, but it took time and effort,” she says.

“Too much time and effort. Which at least partially explains the victim pool change,” he says, nodding.

“That, and his stronger ability to monitor his victims told him which ones were mostly evading any kind of arrest. Of course that was… mostly all of them,” Pepper murmurs. “Working with Tony has made me lose faith in any kind of policing system. What’s the point of them if they can be bought off?”

Yeah, well, cops in low paid positions would probably take any bribe they can get. And those that don’t… Bucky’s read enough stories about cops being fired under suspicious circumstances to know good cops may very well not last. Or if they do they’re intentionally kept in the dark, he’s sure.

“So, you have no idea why you’re here?” he asks, just to be sure.

Pepper shakes her head, “no, but I’m sure we’ll find out soon. Tony is clearly planning something.”

*

Bucky looks annoyed when he shows up next but Tony figures that’s to be expected when he’s not in on his plans. “How’s JARVIS?” Tony asks, figuring this time he’ll get an actual response.

He does, right from Bucky’s facial expression. “Dusty. He needs socialization skills,” he mumbles, clearly annoyed.

Tony laughs, “well, its been awhile,” he says. “So, anything new with you?” he asks even though he already knows the answer. Pepper has filled him in.

“Not really. I found a cat on the street and Steve told me we couldn’t afford to keep it so I fed it anyways because it was soft and I like animals. Also that one night stand that was maybe because of you showed back up like a creepy specter and asked if I could do an interview for her podcast on murderers. Natasha’s weird,” he says like he hadn’t hunted down Tony’s clues to find what was there, hung out with both of his accomplices, took money from him, and from the sounds of it defended him to his best friend on _multiple_ occasions. Natasha isn’t the weird one- people have a fascination with fucked up things, its how people work. Looking in on the worst of what humanity has to offer is nearly a voyeuristic impulse of the public.

“What’d you say?” Tony asks, curious. He’s especially curious given that Bucky has intentionally avoided mentioning Tony’s gifts given that this is being recorded. Even an expert may nearly miss the meaning behind Bucky’s words. Well, _that_ there’s a meaning behind his words. No one listening would know what he’s talking about and its clear that he’s intended it that way. Interesting, and good for Tony.

Bucky shrugs, “I agreed. I mean why not, right? Assuming you’re fine with that,” he adds and not hastily either. He’s genuinely asking permission.

He grins because Bucky makes himself more interesting by the day, really. “Sure, like you said. Why not?” He says it casually but he wants to see what Bucky says, if he says anything of note at all. He’ll have Pepper listen in obviously but he’s got a sneaking suspicion that Bucky isn’t going to let slip information that the public doesn’t already know.

*

Steve opens his door and throws himself on Bucky’s bed and he sighs, making a show of looking annoyed. “I could have been jerking off in here, you don’t know,” he says and Steve snorts.

“You have murder on your walls, Bucky. I happen to know your masturbation habits and when you’re on a hunt you tend to do three a.m wanking sessions when you remember its been awhile,” he says.

There is no person on this _planet_ who should have that information. “How… do you know that?” he asks, frowning.

Steve frowns like he’s just realized this is a weird thing to know about someone. “You know what, other than the fact that you are loud as hell I have no idea. And I sleep like the dead so there is no reason I should know about that.” They share a weird look for a moment, Steve bright red with some approximation with shame and confusion. “You know what, never mind that. I thought we could watch that Ted Bundy thing on Netflix. You… probably know more than the documentary, actually, so that’s-” he starts but Bucky cuts him off.

“Its fine, Steve. I can give you supplementary information,” he says. Steve relaxes some, crawling over to Bucky and curling up beside him like they used to. He curls an arm around Steve’s shoulders and opens a new tab.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aye, this is a smol boi but good, I think.

Steve is dedicated, Sam will give him that. He brings him a bottle of water and Steve takes it gratefully, furiously typing on his phone presumably to figure out of any of this shit is illegal. Holding people for interrogation isn’t really Sam’s area of expertise, nothing about this is his area of expertise really but someone needs to make sure Steve doesn’t keel over dead from one of many health issues trying to kill him at any one moment. Steve once joked that his body was like Australia and everything in it is trying to ensure his death. He’d laughed at the time but it’s not really false- Steve’s body really _does_ seem dedicated to killing him.

He sits beside Steve, dropping an arm around his narrow shoulders and sighing. “Look, I wouldn’t normally tell people this but you should go home and sleep,” he says softly.

He’d been hoping it would come off concerned but from the pointed anger on Steve’s face he’d say that’s a bust. “Why, because you hate Bucky?” he snaps and right, yeah, he _does_ think Bucky is a scourge on this planet. Bucky’s the worst, he’ll probably be patient zero for the zombie apocalypse but that’s not why he suggested Steve go home and sleep.

“Steve, you’re obviously exhausted and you haven’t eaten in _way_ too long. You’re not helping Bucky by being here; you’re mostly only hurting yourself. So go home, eat, sleep a little, and then come back,” he says. He’s hoping like hell Steve will listen but Steve is a stubborn shithead who likes to ignore his body to do whatever the hell he wants so Sam doesn’t expect him to go home.

So when his shoulders droop a little Sam is surprised, but pleased. Steve leans into Sam’s body, pressing his face to his shoulder and he _knows_ Steve wants to sleep but he’s forcing himself to stay awake. “Will you stay here while I’m at home?” he asks softly and Sam sighs.

“Yeah, of course,” he murmurs. Not that he wants to, he has better shit to do but even he’s not so big of a dick that he doesn’t feel bad for Bucky given that he hasn’t done anything. Guy might be the human equivalent to a kidney stone and also Lord Voldemort but he genuinely loves Steve so if picking up Joffrey from Game of Thrones out of the interrogation room is what he needs to do he will.

Steve slowly pries himself away, blinking blearily as he picks himself up from the chair he’s in. “Okay,” he says softly, frowning when Sam gets up too. “Where are you going?”

“To get your wafer ass home safe. You look like you’re about to die,” Sam adds when a bit of stubborn fire returns to his features.

“What if something happens?” he asks, small arms wrapped around his skinny waist and Sam sighs.

“You’re his emergency contact, they’d call you,” he points out. “Plus it doesn’t take that long to get back to your place. Come on,” he says, looping an arm around Steve’s waist.

He hesitates, obviously not wanting to go anywhere but he must be especially tired because he allows Sam to pull him from the police station so he can go home. Good chance, Sam thinks, that Steve will sleep through Bucky being released anyway and then get pissed off when Bucky doesn’t wake him up when he gets home. Bucky might be a lot of things Sam doesn’t like but ignorant to Steve he isn’t. He’d sooner let Steve sleep than wake him up, knowing he’s exhausted.

The travel back to Steve and Bucky’s apartment really isn’t that long, but Steve passes out almost right away anyway, missing some old ass woman with shitty cloud hair glaring at them. Sam glares back, daring Old White Rice Paper Skin to say something but she mostly minds her own damn business except maybe to curse out the youngins and their weird relationships in her head. Sam doesn’t bother to wake Steve up, he just carries him off and hopes to hell no one thinks he’s kidnapped a child and calls the cops.

*

Bucky has no idea how long he’s been sitting in this fucking room but he knows they’re intentionally keeping him awake and he also knows they’ve made it cold on purpose. He’s seen fucking crime shows and also knows things about interrogations. He’s written a few papers on why basically everything cops do during them should be illegal given that they rarely result in getting truthful statements. And media acting like any way to the truth is the best way to interrogate ‘criminals’ doesn’t help.

Which is what he’s spent the last hour, by his guess given that there’s no clock and the chair is deeply uncomfortable, thinking about. He’s about to find some other method of entertainment when that guy, used to be on Tony’s case and Bucky guesses they handed it back over to him, walks in. “You know you look like you’ve done nothing but eat saltine crackers and think about the economy your whole life, right? Like you probably just walked out of the womb in a suit looking to invest,” Bucky tells him.

Agent Coulson doesn’t look amused whatsoever. He gives Bucky a small little smile, eyes narrowed, before he sits. “We _know_ you know where he is,” he tells Bucky and he throws his head back.

“No you fucking _don’t_ ,” he tells Coulson, “because I don’t fucking _know_.” Its been what he’s repeated for hours, almost exact wording, because he knows cops look for even the _tiniest_ discrepancies to pull apart a person’s story. In the article he wrote he likened the technique to gaslighting, an abuse technique designed to make the victim question their memories and recollection of events. For cops and abusers it works the same way- make them doubt their story, and then get them to repeat what you want them to. Which is where false confessions tend to come into play.

Bucky has a _degree_ in psychology, he’s spent time with cops and abusers, this is shit he _knows_ so he’s not a very good interrogation victim. And yet, here he is. Coulson sits back in his seat, “we’ve been going over your notes,” he says like that makes a difference.

Bucky rolls his eyes. “Good for fucking you, hope you find something interesting,” he mumbles.

Coulson leans forward, irritating smirk on his face, “here’s the thing- we didn’t find anything we didn’t already know.”

Yeah, he knows that too. “Its only been a few months, rapport is difficult to establish. You’d know, given that you failed at it,” he points out. Coulson pounces on the small slip right away, sensing the weakness Bucky has let slip accidentally.

“And you have?” he asks, but like he knows the answer is yes.

“No. You know that Shrek quote about onions? Stark is like that- peel back one layer and you find something new underneath. Most of it is contradictory,” he says. Its not, Tony isn’t a stupid man by any stretch and Bucky knows he’s put a lot of thought, effort, and consideration into his actions. The contradictions are mostly the kind you’d see in any complicated human being- everyone has opinions that contradict themselves. Cognitive dissonance is the psychological term for it.

“Seemed knowledgeable enough to do a podcast on his murders,” Coulson says and Bucky rolls his eyes hard.

“So were Natasha and Wanda- its almost like we all know how to read,” he snaps. “They haven’t personally met any of the serial killers they’ve talked about and they’re knowledgeable enough to keep their podcast running. Stupid fucking argument.”

Coulson considers that a moment, letting it sink in before he makes another stupid statement. “You seem agitated,” he says eventually.

It takes everything in his power not to roll his eyes again. “Yes, that’s what happens when you leave a guy in a room for an untold amount of time and ask him stupid questions, that’s called being human. Do you build all your cases off of ‘you acted weird so you must be guilty’? Because if you do you’re a shit agent.”

Psychologically the desire the public has to vilify people they view as acting ‘wrong’ in situations that they believe have a ‘right’ set of behaviors exist for is strong. He’s read a million and one cases and seen way too many news reports to think people acting ‘weird’ is some kind of sign of guilt. People make a big show of due process and whatever, but if a mother’s kid is missing and she doesn’t have hope for the child’s return- a statistically realistic expectation if it’s a stranger abduction- then she’s the fucking devil.

Truthfully Bucky knows people act weird all the fucking time- stick anyone under a microscope and you’ll find something. It’s why Tony went through so much effort of misdirecting people on camera. He knew he was being watched, so he made sure people noticed all the wrong things. Regular people, well, they’re reacting to trauma and regardless of what people like to think no one reacts the same way to unfortunate life events. And not a _soul_ acts ‘correctly’ according to public opinion- there will always be something to prove guilt if people are looking to prosecute.

His reactions to this, well, he’s not surprised though he’ll never tell Coulson that. It’d basically be an admission of guilt in his eyes even though, from Bucky’s point of view, he’s just not dumb enough to assume Tony would stay anywhere he doesn’t like. Shit, he has no idea why Tony turned himself in at _all_ , but he does know that whatever respect he had for what Bucky assumes is an agreement of some kind ran out. Tony has a small attention span anyway.

“You are acting weird, but not in a way I usually see. You’re unusually calm,” he says like that means something. “And you keep repeating the same story almost word for word. Like it’s rehearsed.”

This time Bucky does roll his eyes again. “Yeah, because it is. I start wording things slightly differently and you start claiming there’s contradictions, then you create a seed of doubt, which is designed to make _me_ doubt my story, and then next thing you know I’ve handed out a false confession because you engineered a conversation to your benefit. Maybe consider that I have a background in psychology and interrogation procedures next time you think I’m acting odd.”

For a long moment Coulson considers Bucky. “Shot in the dark, where do you think Stark went? Our best guess, somewhere without cameras given that the entire world is on his ass.”

Bucky laughs, “guy is a genius and also a tech genius- he fucking _built_ ninety percent of cameras you use. The hell makes you think he’ll show up on one of them?” he asks.

And even if he does, JARVIS will conveniently cover his tracks so no one knows the wiser.

 _Sixty eight hours earlier_.


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I think I'm nearing the end of this fic actually. With a few detours from my original plan but that's okay!

Wanda is laughing _way_ too hard at Bucky’s wild entrance, which wasn’t meant to be wild at all but he _did_ smack face first into a door so like. He understands why she thought it was funny. Thankfully it doesn’t feel like it’ll bruise.

Natasha looks pleased with herself as always, kind of reminding Bucky of a self-satisfied cat. “You ready for this or what?” she asks and Bucky shrugs.

“I mean, as I’ll ever be I guess,” he says.

“You’re so weak seeming, how do you hang out with a serial killer?” Wanda asks, eyes narrowed. Her accent sounds vaguely familiar but Bucky can’t quite identify it except to determine that its Eastern European.

Natasha sighs, “excuse her, her parents blew up in Sokovia so now she has no social skills,” she says bluntly. Bucky sneaks a worried glance over to Wanda but she hasn’t reacted so he assumes this is normal for them. Not the weirdest thing he’s ever seen, but still weird enough that it’s a bit uncomfortable given that he has no idea how to react to that. “Jesus, you’d think I made a joke about Jews and ash,” Natasha says and Bucky sighs.

“Well if you had, I’m Jewish so like. If you could uh, refrain that’d be cool,” he says.

Wanda starts laughing and Natasha looks vaguely uncomfortable. Good, now everyone but Wanda apparently is unsure what to do with themselves. “I knew your dark humor would bite you in the ass,” Wanda tells Natasha. “I’ll admit I thought it would have been a game of Cards Against Humanity that brought you down but this is sufficient. Even if I have no idea what you were thinking with this one,” she says, frowning at Bucky before wandering off.

He has no clue what to make of that, especially since Cards Against Humanity kind of relies on offensive humor. “She seems like an asshole but she’s not that bad,” Natasha says. “She’s just a little blunt. Also sorry about the Jew ashes, that was rude,” she says awkwardly.

Bucky frowns, “that’s code for ‘that person is an asshole, but you get used to them being an asshole,’” he points out. “And whatever, I’ve heard worse.” Its not like she actually _made_ the joke anyway. Frankly her comment to Wanda was worse, if built on enough rapport not to matter.

Natasha shrugs, “read it however you will. Lets get this over with though, Pietro actually is annoying when he’s pissed off and he disapproves of murder as a hobby.”

“Technically your hobby is looking up and reporting on serial killers, not murder,” he says. Totally different thing.

“Uh huh, lets go,” she says, walking off and expecting him to follow. He does, not much surprised to find the small apartment littered with books on serial killers and he spots a few on cults too. He’s read most of the titles he sees. Including the profiling books he notes on the bookshelves.

Wanda is perched in front a microphone, and Natasha in front of another so he takes the obvious remaining seat and microphone. “So,” Wanda says, “welcome to Mindhunter, where we talk about serial killers despite having no authority from any field of study.”

“But we do read a lot,” Natasha adds.

“Yeah, I can see that,” Bucky says, forgetting for a moment that this is being recorded. “Uh, for anyone listening there are serial killer books everywhere.”

Natasha rolls her eyes but the action is fond. “Today we’re talking about Tony Stark- infamous even before he was known as a serial killer. And we’ve got a special treat too- Bucky just _happens_ to have interviewed him.”

“Multiple times,” Bucky throws out.

“Don’t brag,” Wanda tells him and he frowns. That’s just relevant to how much information he has, not a brag, but Natasha moves on fast looking amused with the situation.

“So, where would you start?” Natasha asks.

*

Pepper listens to the podcast at Tony’s request and also because she’s curious. Bucky is the only person who knows as much as she does about Tony’s crimes and he’s the only one to know she was involved in them. Tony had assured her he wouldn’t say anything and she had her doubts when she met him at that house, which she only did because she assumed he knew something she didn’t not that that turned out to be true. But he’s said nothing about her so far not that he’d have evidence to back up his claims. JARVIS is much more secretive than she is.

As expected Tony is right about Bucky pretty much repeating what people already know. “There’s some stuff,” she tells Tony, “that’s more specific to you, mostly about your personality. And his theory that you killed Obadiah but other than that you were right- he didn’t say anything new.” She’s not entirely sure what that means for her or for Tony though she suspects Tony has some ideas. He wouldn’t have bothered with Bucky if he didn’t and she knows it’s difficult to catch and hold Tony’s attention. He’d been known as something of a womanizer, something Bucky half disputes in the podcast when he points out Tony is actually just as flirty and casual with men as he is with women but people continue to read him as straight.

He’s not wrong about that, though Tony had been written off a little too fast as an asshole rather than looking closer at his relationships with people. Or rather his glaring _lack_ of them and its not because he’s lacking for people flocking to him either. Tony has a strong personality, one people find pleasant to be around. But Tony is bored by most people- finds them predictable and a little irritating to be around. Pepper wonders if people read into that sooner rather than later if people would have realized something has always been a little off about Tony. Even she’d noticed it when she first started working for him but he is genuinely charismatic so she stuck around. Then she got a little too sucked in and now… now she doesn’t even know if she _wants_ to leave whatever their relationship is.

Whatever Tony’s brand of caring is it shouldn’t be the kind she wants to keep around, she’s not stupid so she knows that, but there’s something with him that she’s never gotten from anyone else and she’s not entirely sure what it is. She’s tried to figure it out for some time now, nail down what she’s getting out of this relationship one way or another, but the answer in any kind of complete sense is lost on her.

“What do you think of him?” Tony asks her, drawing her out of her own thoughts.

He actually wants her opinion; she knows he does because she’s been here before even if it wasn’t this exact situation. She considers it for a moment, going over her internal knowledge of everything related to Bucky Barnes before answering. “I think you chose well,” she says eventually but Tony makes an irritated noise.

“Be honest, Pep,” he tells her but she _is_ being honest.

“Seriously Tony, I think you chose someone who’s bright- you know how hard it is to find someone who can keep up with you. He’s well spoken, and he’s got an… interesting quality about him. I’m not sure what it is. And he’s clearly invested in keeping your secrets for whatever reason.” And hers, not that she says that. It’d been stupid for her to share her involvement in anything to begin with but she had to tell _someone_ and she sure as hell wasn’t filling in the various police forces that regularly crawl up her ass. Bucky seemed like a suitable option, one that she knew was already keeping Tony’s secrets and frankly hers are less heinous than his.

Tony makes a small hum of approval and Pepper considers her words, this situation.

“What exactly _are_ you looking for from him, though?” she asks. Tony doesn’t take an interest often, and he’s taken several leaps of faith for Bucky. That’s not something he does with anything that’s not technology. Tony has always connected to machines more than people, but with Bucky he’d given him several chances to give up information or worse. What is it about Bucky that’s drawn him in, or more pressingly what’s Tony looking to get _out_ of whatever trait of Bucky’s drew him in?

Tony’s response, or more accurately his lack of one, surprises her. When he’s uncharacteristically chatty usually that means something has gone wrong assuming he’s not eyeballs deep in a new invention. This time she’s pretty sure its something different entirely. “I don’t know,” Tony answers eventually and Pepper frowns. “A little unusual for me, sure, but I don’t know,” he repeats.

Pepper thinks he knows more than he thinks he does, but Tony has always been piss poor at analyzing his emotions. Other people’s, that he’s good at- _great_ at depending on the circumstances- but he’s never been good at detangling the mess that is his own emotional web. Thankfully for him he has her and she’s known him for almost longer than she hasn’t. “I think you might be a little in love, Tony,” she tells him.

She’s expecting the laugh Tony gives her. “Yeah, I think love might be a little beyond my capabilities,” he says almost ruefully but she knows that’s not true.

“Tony, you loved your mother just fine. And you love Rhodey too, and Yinsen. You love me probably more than anyone else in my life ever has, and I’ve seen the way you interact with children. You love them too. Its not beyond your capabilities, its just that romantic love hasn’t featured prominently in your life,” she says. There’s been plenty of flings but Tony gets bored fast, and there’s not may people he has shared the whole of who he is with. She might be the only one, before he turned himself in. And now there’s Bucky, who’s bright enough to figure out Tony’s motive for his crimes, something Pepper knows is personal to him, intimate. There was no ‘surprise I kill people’ moment, he knew that walking in. Whatever it is about Bucky that’s drawn Tony in this might be the first time he’s ever had the opportunity to indulge himself in a way that doesn’t require hiding so much of who and what he is.

Bucky is tempting, he has to be when Tony has lived such a secluded life.

*

Steve smiles at him when he walks in the door with food and at first he thinks it’s the food that has him happy but then he speaks. “That podcast was interesting. Surprisingly funny considering, you know, _murder_. Is that gluten free?” he asks, eyeing the pizza.

It is, because he’s not an asshole who buys food Steve can’t eat even if he still won’t react all that well to the pizza. “Uh huh. Sam can’t have any,” he adds because Sam is the worst and Bucky refuses to feed gremlins. It’s against the rules.

“Sam isn’t here,” Steve tells him, rolling his eyes fondly. He walks over, pulling the pizza from Bucky’s grasp. “So, want to finish the Bundy documentary series?” he asks and Bucky raises an eyebrow.

“You want to eat to that?” he asks. Bucky doesn’t mind, but Steve’s squeamish as hell when it comes to fake murder let alone actual murder.

He seems to realize this as well and wrinkles his nose. “Fine. Lets watch a DC movie and make fun of it,” he says and Bucky laughs.

“ _Martha_ ,” he says in his best approximation of Batman and Steve laughs.

“Much more palatable than murder,” he says, “come on.” He runs off with the pizza so Bucky has no choice but to follow. He shakes his head and goes after him, settling on his bed when Steve picks his room over Bucky’s. Probably for the best, given the murder investigation on his walls at the moment.

They’re half way through Batman vs Superman when Sam calls for the third fucking time. Bucky pauses the movie, “just answer it, whatever he’s freaking out about must be some kind of emergency.” Sam rarely calls let alone more than once so he figures something must be up. The last time he called more than once Riley had been in an accident though he’s fine now, if a little stuck in Texas thanks to his job.

Steve gives him an apologetic look and answers the phone with a semi confused greeting before frowning. “Uh, he wants to talk to you,” he says and Bucky’s eyebrows draw together.

He takes the phone and holds it to his ear, “if this is some weird way to tell me that my presence on this earth caused the Spanish Inquisition I will have you know you are Elon Musk’s soul twin,” he says, earning a wrinkled nose from Steve.

“What? No, don’t you watch the fucking news?” he asks and Bucky rolls his eyes.

“Watching news requires cable, which I don’t have,” he points out.

“Jesus Christ,” Sam mumbles and Steve waves a hand around to catch his attention, head tilted to the side in question when Bucky looks over. “Look up Tony Stark,” he says and Bucky rolls his eyes.

“I’m already aware that he’s a serial killer, Sam,” he says, annoyed. Seriously, is this _actually_ what he’s calling for?

Sam lets out an annoyed noise. “Fuck man, you are terrible at keeping up dramatic needs. The guy fucking _escaped_ okay. So like, don’t die. I don’t want to deal with Steve being a mess at your funeral,” he says.

“He wouldn’t kill me anyway, I’m not his type,” he says.

“Dude doesn’t _have_ a type, that’s what makes him scary Barnes. Keep up with the damn program. And don’t die,” he tells Bucky again, hanging up. Steve frowns at him, looking ten times more confused than he had ten seconds ago.

Bucky sighs, “Sam claims Tony has escaped but its _Sam_ so.” He shrugs but Steve yanks the laptop out of his lap and looks it up.

Imagine his surprise when it turned out that Sam wasn’t being a jackass, Tony really _has_ escaped.


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I think I might be on the last chapter of this boi as I type (15 chapters in) so this is gunna be wrapped up soon and then on to other projects!

Bucky sits in the damn interrogation room tired and annoyed. He’s pretty sure they’re purposefully disrupting his sleeping patterns too, which really only serves to piss him off more than anything. When Coulson walks back in, stupid smug look on his face and coffee in his hand, Bucky is half hoping an asteroid will fall from the sky and punt him in the head. “How’d you sleep?” he asks and Bucky rolls his eyes.

“Like shit because you’re using torture techniques on me, moron. You _do_ realize I’m not an idiot, right?” he asks. Coulson considers him for a long moment, like a bug under a microscope.

“We’ve looked into your records- phone bills, banks statements and the like. There’s no record of your existence,” he says. “Care to explain that?”

He doesn’t want to show a reaction but that makes no god damn sense so he’s positive he looks confused. “Look again, agent, because I can assure you there are plenty of records of all those things.”

Coulson nods, “we know. Your best friend, the plucky blonde,” he says and Bucky can’t help but clench his fists. They should leave Steve out of this; he’s got nothing useful to offer. And neither does Bucky for that matter. Well, mostly. “Insisted we called your phone from his,” he continues. “I’m sure you know that it rang, showing pretty clearly that you have to have a record of phone bills. And yet we found none. Same thing with bank statements- Steve managed to scrounge up a few pieces of proof that you have an account but we found nothing. Which means you’re hiding something and we want to know what.”

Bucky leans forward and Coulson looks a little excited for no fucking reason. “I don’t know what the _fuck_ you’re talking about,” he says honestly. “I paid my phone bill last month, I have a bank account I used to do it, and every work place I’ve ever had should have proof of that.” Let alone whatever Steve managed to find.

“Then why are there no records?” Coulson asks and Bucky throws his hands up, or tries to but they’re currently chained to the table in front of him.

“The fuck if I know, Coulson. Last I knew all those things left a trail so if its gone I don’t know why.” Its genuine, he really does have no idea what the fuck he’s talking about and while he has a good clue of how this all happened he didn’t have any idea that JARVIS or Tony or Pepper or whoever could clean house like that. As far as he knew he thought JARVIS would keep any sensitive information on his computer safe, not whatever the hell this is.

There’s a long, _long_ moment of silence before Coulson speaks again. “Where is he?” he asks and they both know who he means.

Bucky throws himself back in his seat. “I. Don’t. Know.” And he doesn’t, he has no idea where Tony would go after escaping from prison why the hell would he even _have_ that information?

“Yes you do. You know something or Stark wouldn’t have felt the need to erase you from existence for, as far as we can tell, the last ten years. Where is he?” he asks again.

Bucky ignores him and thinks back to what he was doing ten years ago but the answer is obvious. Internet was rudimentary and Bucky hadn’t exactly spent a lot of time on it- there wasn’t much of anything to erase except maybe an embarrassing MySpace page. Anything else before that, which is probably only job records, would have been recorded with paper and that’s either lost to time or filed away somewhere that’s not immediately accessible. Lovely.

“I don’t fucking know, Coulson,” Bucky tells him for what feels like the millionth time.

Coulson considers him a long moment, back to that creepy stare-at-him-like-a-bug method of interrogation. “Well I think you know something,” he says, “or Stark wouldn’t have gone through the trouble of erasing everything important about you seemingly from existence,” he says.

Yeah, he _knows_ that but he doesn’t know what he knows. “Whatever it is he thinks is important I have no fucking clue, alright. Has it occurred to you that maybe I don’t know what detail a serial killer would find important enough to get rid of?” he snaps.

“ _You_ were the detail he thought was important enough to get rid of Barnes, doesn’t that strike you as odd?” Coulson asks, frowning at him.

Bucky rolls his eyes, “try again buddy, he’s a master of misdirection. The detail you’re looking for isn’t the glaringly obvious one.” Of all the time he’s spent studying this case, Tony specifically, Bucky would have thought Coulson would have learned something about the guy. But then he didn’t ever pick up on motive either so maybe Bucky has too much faith in him.

“If you think that’s true then I guess you wouldn’t have a problem if we went through your notes, then. Would you?” he asks, playing some weird rendition of bad cop Bucky is sure.

“Do I get out of this damn room?” he asks.

*

He doesn’t _want_ to let them in but letting them in means he gets to sleep uninterrupted and that’s Bucky’s end goal. A good night’s sleep. Steve’s visibly pissed to see Coulson and some agents lingering behind him, but Bucky shakes his head. Behind Steve Sam looks a little worried, which is weird but okay. He drags his ass up the stairs, flinging the door to his room open, “have at it,” he snaps. The agents all file in, immediately caught by his murder board.

“What’s with the weird separation of victims?” Coulson asks.

“I was trying to determine motive. They were different then the rest, and his first test group. Figured I might find something there that I wouldn’t find elsewhere,” he answers honestly.

“Did you?” a new agent asks, tough looking Asian woman. May, he thinks her name is.

Bucky shakes his head, “nope.” From the doorway Steve frowns because he knows that’s a lie. Bucky avoids making eye contact with him. Doesn’t really matter anyway, Tony’s motive, except to Tony.

“Where are your notes?” Coulson asks.

“On the computer I suspect you already seized and went through,” Bucky tells him.

Coulson sighs. “Fantastic. I assume your sessions were recorded?” he states more than asks.

“I have transcripts,” Bucky says, turning to his night stand. He spots the card thing there, that thing Tony gave him that must have told his AI that Bucky was safe to let into the house. He ignores it and grabs the binder of notes he has stuffed under the night stand and hands it off to Coulson and Gang. He takes it immediately and all the agents stick their heads into the fray fast, eager to glean any information Bucky got off Tony.

While they’re distracted Bucky swipes the card off the night stand and sticks it in his pocket. Across the room Steve notices that too, but stays silent.

*

It takes fucking _ages_ for the agents to leave and Bucky is ready to drop dead on his feet but they finally go. Steve gives him a _look_ and Bucky knows what he wants to ask but he holds up his hand. “Can I just sleep? Please?” he asks. He can tell Steve wants to argue but he must look like absolute shit because Steve eventually nods.

“I have questions when you wake up,” he says and Bucky nods, headed off to his now stripped room. Even his _blankets_ ended up on the floor. He shuts the door behind him, grabbing his blanket from the ground and eying his bed wondering if he wants to bother with pajamas or not. He decides on pajamas because he wants to sleep comfortably, damn it, and pats down his pockets for anything important in them. Once he lost his keys, which ended up being found in the dryer so he’s made a habit of emptying his pockets before changing pants.

That’s when he feels the key thing and, despite his sleep-deprived state something clicks. He knows where Tony is.

*

He paces nervously even though he knows Pepper is right. Bucky’s obviously being held for questioning and she’d spent her own time in an interrogation room. But she would be easier to clear as a much more public figure with a full schedule to show that no; she doesn’t spend any kind of time with Tony or thinking about him. His calls to her are made with a secure line he built for the express purpose of calling her. And Bucky now too, though he has no idea. Or maybe by now he does given that he’s sure the FBI has picked up on JARVIS’ thorough erasing of most of Bucky’s life. First while there didn’t leave much to clean up after given that he’d been a child then a teen, but everything after that had to go. What little remained untouched is remnants of Bucky that don’t at all reflect who he is now.

Its been just over three days though and no word from Bucky. JARVIS has informed him that his computer had been sifted through a day and a half ago and he’d gleaned off the agents that Bucky was being held for questioning but they can’t really keep him much longer. There’s no evidence Bucky is involved in crimes even _if_ Tony left his stuff untouched. At best he’s guilty of some shady dealings with a serial killer but accepting money isn’t really a crime, and if Tony didn’t have an unusual hobby it wouldn’t even be frowned upon.

“Sir, you’re wearing the carpet thin,” JARVIS tells him and he sighs.

“It’s been three days, J. I can’t stay here forever. And what if he doesn’t show up?” _I think you might be a little in love, Tony_. Pepper’s words come back to him unwanted at the moment because he doesn’t want to consider what happens if she’s right. Love isn’t something he’s ever felt, not romantically anyway. If he’s honest he didn’t really think he was capable of it, romantic love. Or any love though Pepper made a point when she said that he’s loved plenty of people.

It’s just that none of those versions of love were ever romantic in nature. There was a time when his love for Pepper could have been, but then she found out about the serial killer thing and she pulled away for awhile after that. Eventually she came back around- aside from Bucky she’s the only one to know _why_ he chose his victims. That’s not something he takes lightly. He hadn’t been lying when he told Bucky motive is personal when they met. Maybe not to every killer, but it is to him.

But if he _does_ love Bucky, and that’s not something he’s much willing to entertain, what if he doesn’t show up? What’s he supposed to do then?

“Give him another day or two, then I would suggest you leave,” JARVIS says helpfully.

Tony shakes his head, “I’ve been here too long already. I have to leave tomorrow,” he says. He’s got no choice.

“I disagree. Your original plans suggest you planned to spend three days here and you’ve only been here a day and a half. You have time,” the AI tells him.

Yeah, maybe. But he doesn’t like the idea of taking chances. “And if he still doesn’t show?” he asks.

“Perhaps you can leave him a clue to follow,” JARVIS suggests.

Tony shakes his head, “too much risk of cops finding this place and if they do you have clear instructions,” he tells the AI. Fuck, if the cops show up _with Bucky_ that’s a whole new set of- no. He’s kept his mouth shut so far about a whole bunch of things. There’s no reason to think he’ll talk now.

“A day and a half,” the AI reminds him and Tony sighs, but nods.

He’s in the kitchen making food when he hears the door unlock and he frowns. JARVIS is supposed to tell him if someone’s at the door and the AI has remained suspiciously silent so Tony carefully curls his fingers around the knife he’s holding, eyes on the door. When it opens though Bucky stumbles through looking something haggard so he drops the knife and walks over fast, almost propping him up by the time he makes it to him.

“Jesus, you look like shit,” Tony says. “No offense,” he adds.

“Surprise!” JARVIS says far too late and Tony rolls his eyes.

“J, don’t surprise people on the run from the cops. Tell me who’s at the fucking door,” he tells the AI, swinging the door shut.

“I’ve been awake for a really long time,” Bucky says. Tony doesn’t expect the sharp urge to murder whoever forced Bucky to stay awake to give out information he doesn’t even have but the feeling is _bone_ deep. “S’fine,” Bucky tells him, smiling ruefully. “I’m assuming you have a bed.”

So he plans to stay? Tony feels his hopes rise a little and he squishes it before it gets too strong. Bucky barely even knows what he’s saying; he’s dead on his feet. Tony smiles back, just a little. “Yeah, I have a bed. Come on,” he says softly, gently pulling Bucky along to the one small bedroom in the house. Bucky allows Tony to drag him along, clearly too tired to think at the moment.

When they get to the bed Bucky immediately sits on it, yawning for a moment before blinking a few times, clearly trying to keep himself awake a little longer. Tony smiles because, haggard as he looks, the action is cute. “What?” Bucky asks, half smiling back.

He shouldn’t, he so knows he shouldn’t, but he leans in and kisses Bucky softly. He doesn’t expect a reaction on account of Bucky being so tired, but Bucky leans into it, settling his hand on Tony’s hip and letting Tony tilt his head to the side. He wants to press Bucky into the mattress, see how far this could go before Bucky pulls away but he’s not going to press his luck so he pulls back. Its… not like Bucky is in his right mind. And there’s a good chance he’ll regret this in the morning. When Bucky makes a small, disappointed noise though Tony laughs a little. “Sleep Bucky, you clearly need it,” he tells him softly.

*

He’s going to hell in every religion, Bucky is sure of it. Fuck, he’s probably going to _atheist_ hell. Its not, he thinks, all that bad that he kissed a serial killer given that he’d been caught by surprise. It’s more so the fact that he liked it and doesn’t exactly regret it that’s sealed his fate.

Fuck, if only Steve knew.

Its tempting, sitting there and thinking things through over and over again but he knows he’s just going to go around in circles for the next forever so he drags his ass out of bed. The smell of food, really _good_ food, doesn’t hurt either so he follows his nose to the kitchen. He finds Tony there looking shockingly domestic for a guy that kills people in his spare time stirring whatever is in the pot. Bucky watches him for a moment, unsure if Tony has noticed him of or if he’s waiting for him to say something first.

He looks over eventually though, snorting when he sees Bucky. “Your hair looks ridiculous,” he says and yeah Bucky knows it’s sticking up all over the place. Always does in the mornings. Though that’s not what he expects his first real conversation with Tony outside a prison to start with.

“I uh. Didn’t remember to pack a brush. Or uh, anything else,” he mumbles. What the fuck was he thinking?

Tony seems to be able to read the apprehension on him, giving him a weary look before sighing softly. “I… I’m leaving tonight, tomorrow morning technically. J has years of data on the neighbors. Three a.m is when the least amount of activity happens in this neighborhood. You don’t need to come with me; I’m not looking to trap you here. But if you come with me there’s no going back,” he says. He looks pained, like this isn’t the kind of news he wants to deliver but he’s stuck with it anyway.

Bucky doesn’t know what to do with that because logically he’s right but… its not something he thought of. “You kissed me last night,” he says instead because his bitch of a brain decides _that’s_ a less uncomfortable subject.

To his credit Tony looks away, guilty. “I uh. Sorry,” he murmurs.

Odd reaction, one Bucky suspects has reasons though he has no idea what they are. If his brain wasn’t still half fried and he wasn’t in the middle of a mental mess he might be able to extrapolate some information but he’s not so lucky. He wants to find some kind of response, words that would explain his feelings but he doesn’t even know _what_ he’s feeling at the moment. There’s a reason he’s here now, a reason he chose to track Tony down and not tell any cops about it but the reason is lost on him for the time being.

 _Or_ , a snide little voice in his head tells him, _you just don’t want to admit why you came_.

That’d be easier, not looking at things too closely. At the moment he’s got nothing else to do though. And Tony, he looks so nervous and confused that Bucky takes a step forward almost subconsciously.

*

Conflicted is probably the best way to describe Bucky. He’s quiet, reserved, even if Tony can see there’s something under that that draws him closer. Tony watches him, surprised by his reaction to Bucky’s presence. He’s never really had a strong urge to spend time with most people, Rhodey and Pepper aside, but he itches to learn more about Bucky not that he’s cooperating as deep in thought as he is.

He does, at least, appreciate the food. “Wouldn’t have thought a rich guy would know how to cook. Don’t you have people to do this for you?” he asks, giving his bowl a surprised look.

Tony huffs out a laugh, “sure I did. But my grandfather taught me how to cook when I was a kid. He was an Italian immigrant, food was important to him.” Important to a lot of Italians actually, so Tony learned how to cook and how to do it well. He hadn’t taken to it easily either, but once his grandfather thought to explain it as edible chemistry he had had a significantly easier time with it. Even if it’s baking that’s the real science.

Bucky gives his bowl a sad look. “Only Jewish food I know how to cook is… none. I mean, I’ve tried but I uh. Am not a good cook. I live on pasta and the hopes and dreams of small children. And take out.”

He wrinkles his nose because that’s distasteful. Everyone should know how to cook; it’s a basic life skill. “Well, lucky for you at least one of us knows what good food is,” he says.

“And what, you’ll cook for me?” Bucky asks, almost jokes, but there’s something to the question Tony doesn’t quite grasp.

“I shudder to think of what you call food so yeah, I’ll cook.” He remembers college and Rhodey’s weird late night concoctions that were probably toxic. Sure, Bucky’s older than they were when Rhodey decided making ramen with vodka was a good plan but its clear he hasn’t exited that cooking stage yet.

Bucky smiles a little, giving Tony an amused look. “So, since you’re Italian. Settle the pineapple on pizza debate. Yay or nay?” he asks and Tony wrinkles his nose.

“Fuck the Canadians, what they did to pizza was an anti Italian hate crime.” Fucking fruit on pizza, and one that boldly conflicts with every other flavor _on_ the pizza like it has a _right_ to be there. Worst damn thing that has ever been done to food.

“Pineapple on pizza is _so_ good,” Bucky says and Tony blinks several times.

“I’m going to forgive that on account of you haven’t eaten real pizza probably, and also your mother for sure dropped you on your head as a baby and this is the residual effect,” he says.

“Is not, it just tastes good. Relax about it,” Bucky tells him like that isn’t the most offensive thing Tony has heard in years and he’s spent the last five years being accused of every crime that’s happened ever.

He rubs his temples, “I should have went with that boring law professor from Harvard,” he mumbles.

“Yeah, but then where would you be?” Bucky asks. It’s casual, light, but he makes a good point. Tony’s only here, specifically, because of him. Otherwise he probably wouldn’t have bothered with the risks he’s taken thus far. His original plan didn’t involve staying in a house with people anywhere near it let alone the rest.

“Probably frolicking in the woods free of the knowledge that I kissed a barbarian who likes pineapple on pizza,” Tony tells him. “So bored, probably.”

Bucky snorts, “that’s like thirty percent of your personality,” he points out. He’s not wrong, Tony knows he has a small attention span and he always ends up curing it with some insane and sometimes also explosive plan. He’s pondering exactly how badly this current situation could blow up in his face when Bucky takes the conversation in a new direction. “Why’d you stop? Not just killing either, but you turned yourself in. Why?” he asks.

There’s a question that he’s been waiting far too long to ask. “What makes you think I had a reason?” he asks, dodging the question entirely.

At least Bucky takes a moment to consider why he asked. No one else ever has and that irritates Tony. It’s stupid, asking questions because they’re expected and not because you’re genuinely interested in the answer. Bucky tilts his head to the side, frowning a little. “You show no remorse, you think your victims earned what you did to them, and you went through _extreme_ measures to ensure nothing traced back to you let alone keeping media attention diverted. Family attention too. There’s _no_ perceivable motivation with what I know now that gives an indication of why you’d stop killing. You’ve said you’ve never felt _compelled_ to kill, but you clearly enjoyed it. There has to be a reason you gave that up, something that was more important to you than what you viewed as justified murder.”

Another leap, Tony knows, because there’s no indication that there’s something else more important to him than his murders. No reason to assume that’s even remotely accurate.

“I had my reasons,” Tony murmurs, not all that willing to give Bucky an answer. He’d like to, but that isn’t his story to tell.


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I officially finished writing this as of today! So its time to do edits and whatnot then post the rest :) But its done!

Bucky isn’t sure what inspired him to look up his name but he had had to ask Tony for his phone. Given the situation he shouldn’t have been surprised that he’d taken it even if he was, once he finally realized it wasn’t on him. It should have occurred to him that it was strange that he had no texts or calls, especially from Steve, but until his Google search turns up dozens of articles on him skipping town the radio silence doesn’t even register.

“You’re blocking my calls somehow, and my texts,” he tells Tony, who’s perched over a map. Weird that he’s not looking at it on some type of tablet- it hadn’t taken much time with him to learn that he largely prefers technology to paper.

Tony looks up from the map. “You are aware of how easy it is to track devices, right? I probably should have left when you first got here given that I have no idea when someone or another would have thought to track your phone. Couldn’t have been long, JARVIS tells me you found out that you’re officially wanted in my investigation. First article on that broke pretty much hours after you got here. Stupid, considering you had nothing to do with my breaking out,” he mumbles more to himself than Bucky, poised over his map again.

There’s a lot of that he could respond to, mostly that Tony doesn’t seem to have a problem circumventing technological limits in any other area so he’d be fine now. But that’s not what he chooses to go with. “Why did you? Stay, I mean.” He could have gone, _should_ have. Tony is by no means stupid nor is he especially risky in the way he commits crime. Without a confession Bucky doubts his murders would have even been linked given how different they were from each other. By all means the evidence suggests that this isn’t normal behavior for him.

Its clear that Tony doesn’t want to answer the question given how tense he looks but he does eventually look up, glancing at Bucky over his shoulder. “I waited for you,” he says softly, looking away for just a moment before he looks back to him. It’s a shockingly soft moment of vulnerability that Bucky doesn’t know what to do with.

“But _why_? What do I have to offer you?” he asks. From where he’s standing there’s not much he could be useful for. He’s not like Pepper, who has taken over his company and also likely did a lot to keep his image the way it was before he turned himself in and after. Plus she has to be the one keeping up all his properties, keeping his cash flow going, and dozens of other useful things outside what he’s sure is a genuine enough relationship. But Bucky doesn’t have any of that, relationship included.

Tony shakes his head, “don’t play stupid Bucky,” he murmurs softly, turning back to the map. “You know damn well why I waited for you.”

*

Bucky makes himself scarce for most of the day while Tony plans, which leads him to believe that Bucky wants nothing to do with him. That hurts like hell, but he can’t exactly blame the guy. He _is_ a serial killer and that’s only the beginning of a long set of flaws. But when he’s got what little he’s taking with him by the door Bucky appears again looking pale but determined. “I’m going with you,” he murmurs softly.

He raises an eyebrow, “is that what you want? Because it doesn’t seem like it,” he says softly.

Of all the ways he could react he pulls out the card that JARVIS would have recognized to let him in. Nifty little piece of tech, that. Even if JARVIS was the one who did most of the work as far as infiltrating Bucky’s systems. “The cops raided my room. Forgot I had this on my night stand and I swiped it before they noticed. I made my choice when I intentionally withheld evidence from them,” he says.

“Did you realize what it was?” he asks.

Bucky shakes his head. “Not until they left. I was exhausted and I wanted to go to bed but once they were gone it occurred to me that you didn’t send both Pepper and I here for no reason.”

He didn’t, obviously. For Bucky it’d been more of a clue on where to go and for Pepper it’d been a warning that he’s up to something. He knows both of them got their intended message. Still, intentionally hiding evidence is entirely different than going with him to an undisclosed location as far as Bucky is concerned. “It’d be easy to claim I kidnapped you or something. Story might sound unbelievable but a reminder that no one noticed I was a serial killer with some damn high profile targets might convince cops its not that far-fetched after all. You don’t need to do this,” he says.

He doesn’t expect the suspicious look from Bucky, “do you want me to go or not?” he asks, sounding almost… hurt? Its there, under the waspish anger and that’s curious.

Tony sighs. “Of course I do, but I want you to want to go. I don’t want you to wake up three weeks from now only to realize you made a mistake because there’s no coming back from that.” The longer he stays with Tony the harder the suspension of disbelief will be to maintain with whatever story they come up with.

Bucky shakes his head, “don’t patronize me Tony, I know what I want,” he says and Tony nods.

“Alright, then lets go.”

*

Silence isn’t something Tony likes, Bucky can tell, but from the way he keeps glancing over he’s sure that Tony is waiting for him to talk. Or hoping he will. But at the moment Bucky has a lot on the brain and… and he just threw away his whole life for this and he doesn’t even know _why_. There’s a lot of things that are fucked up about this but the fact that he’s got no damn reason for any of it is probably the most fucked in his opinion.

“Are you okay?” Tony asks after they’ve been driving for some time. “You’ve been quiet and our conversations lead me to believe that’s not really normal for you.”

It isn’t. Bucky doesn’t usually have a problem talking to people, never has even if he does it a lot less now than he used to. He sighs, “Tony, I just gave up my entire life. Can I process in peace?” he asks softly, glancing over at him for a moment. He looks guilty, like he’s caused this when he hasn’t. Bucky came to him of his own free will, stuck around of his own free will, and then followed him again because he chose to. This is no one’s fault but his.

He doesn’t expect it when Tony reaches over, laying his hand on Bucky’s thigh and squeezing for a moment before trying to pull his hand back. Bucky stops him though, catching his hand and weaving his fingers through Tony’s. He needs something to hold on to right now, some way to keep himself grounded and Tony’s hand is warm and solid. Tony’s fingers tighten around his and he relaxes some, letting himself be in the moment without thinking of the implications of what will inevitably follow.

At some point he must fall asleep, still somewhat tired from the emotional whiplash of the last few days. When he wakes up though everything is brighter but the surroundings, mostly woods, are the same. “Did we even go anywhere?” he mumbles, stretching himself out. It’s only then that he realizes he still has Tony’s hand in his and he pulls away so he can properly stretch. Tony looks a little hurt but doesn’t say anything about it.

“We travelled pretty far actually. We’re about two hours away from where we’re going,” he says. “Also I destroyed you phone. Sorry,” he says even though he so fucking isn’t.

“I had stuff on there that I wanted to keep,” he mumbles.

“I have all the information that was on it, Bucky. I’m not a total asshole,” Tony tells him.

He doesn’t much have a response to that so he sighs, letting his displeasure be known. “Where are we going, exactly?” he asks to change the subject.

Tony lets out a soft noise and Bucky gets the feeling he’s not going to get an answer. “Might be best if you don’t know. Plausible deniability of the cops catch up with me,” he says and that’s actually kind of smart.

“Great. Will there be food?” he asks and Tony snorts.

“Not anything you’d make for yourself, you Triscuits eating freak. But yeah, I’ll make something when we get there,” he says.

Bucky frowns, “do you want me to drive? You’ve been awake for like… ever,” he says, not entirely sure _when_ Tony slept last.

He shakes his head though, “chronic insomnia, I’m fine. Also you don’t know where you’re going.”

Okay, good point.

*

Bucky looks up at the cottage and frowns. “A serial killer took me to a cabin in the woods. Is this how I die?” he asks, looking over to Tony.

“A bear might eat you, so maybe I guess.” Once he and Rhodey got wasted in the woods in Montana and they almost got eaten by a bear. He doesn’t know if that’s normal in the state or not, but he sure as hell didn’t go back to find out.

“This feels like the beginning of a slasher,” Bucky mumbles.

“If it were, you’d be the villain so technically _I’m_ in danger,” he points out. Bucky squints and Tony sighs, “the dude with the disability is always the villain. I’m pretty so I’m safe.”

“You’re probably the pretty cousin that lures the group of five to their deaths,” Bucky says.

“Or the Survival Girl who’s always a virginal brunette,” Tony says.

“The only thing you have in common with the Survivor Girl is your hair color,” Bucky tells him. “If anyone is the Survivor Girl its me, thanks. _I’m_ the one who empathized with the killer, thank _you_ ,” he says, surprisingly offended that he doesn’t get to be a bad movie trope.

Tony shakes his head, laughing. “This is why I like you,” he tells Bucky.

“My bad movie meta?” Bucky says back, feigning cluelessness.

He shakes his head, “no. You aren’t afraid of me.” Most would be, even Pepper had been for awhile even if she’s certainly gotten over that now. Rhodey stopped speaking to him entirely though Tony isn’t sure if there’s fear in that or if it’s mostly disgust. Probably the latter, Rhodey is probably too brave for his own good. He used to joke that Tony needed a black friend to keep him from doing stupid white people shit but Tony managed to talk him into stupid white people shit all the time so clearly that wasn’t right. Though he was not fond of abandoned buildings and consistently avoided being dragged into them so maybe he wasn’t entirely wrong about his assessments of their friendship.

Bucky considers this for a moment, looking up at the small but sleep cabin structure as he does. “No reason to be,” Bucky tells him. “I’m not your type, and it seems pretty clear you’ve given up murder as a hobby.”

Yeah, not exactly but he’ll leave Bucky to think that for now. “Pretty sure you wouldn’t be afraid even if I didn’t. Give up murder, I mean.”

“Still not your type. Also, you’d have no way to watch me considering your systems are _way_ too expensive to stick in my house. And also they’re meant four houses, not apartments.”

“I managed to figure people out without the systems too,” he points out, “but surveillance was easier”. Finding tangible proof pre idiots installing his systems was a fucking _bitch_ to do because it required a lot more manual work but it had been doable. JARVIS still kept track of everything once it was in, but it meant he wasted a lot of time.

“I don’t know if its because I have a really strong stomach or because I have a one track mind but I’m hungry,” he says and Tony laughs.

“Uh huh. Well come on then, you make an attractive hood ornament but food is inside,” he says, walking over to Bucky and shooing him off the hood of the car towards the door of the cabin. Which isn’t even a _cabin_ in the woods, it’s a cottage in a park but he’ll let Bucky have his horror movie tropes.

“Care to tell me how the cops won’t find you here? Because something tells me they’ll look in all of your properties,” Bucky tells him.

Of course they will, not that they’ll find more than they had the last time they raided his places. “This would have to have a house on the map for them to look into it. Technically the entire construction is illegal but I figure what’s skipping some electrical permits after killing a bunch of people? Also it means there’s no record of this place existing to anyone but me.” And Pepper, but she doesn’t count.

“You built this yourself?” Bucky asks, looking too surprised for someone who should know Tony once built a house on a cliff he liked after being told it was impossible out of spite.

“Not the first thing I’ve built, and definitely not the most impressive,” he says.

“You had a whole bunch of people build that one cliff house that was basically an architectural fuck you so don’t look at me like that. Also, your engineering feats don’t count, they aren’t houses,” he says.

“Do so,” Tony tells him, shooing him towards the house again.

“No one died here right, because I _will_ sleep outside,” Bucky says, looking serious about that too.

Tony sighs. “No Buck, no one died here.”

*

There’s a million things wrong with this situation, Bucky _knows_ that but somehow he finds himself mostly on Tony’s lap anyway, back to Tony’s chest as he stretches out across the couch watching Star Wars of all things. Which is apparently one of Tony’s favorite movies. “I’ve always liked Star Trek better,” he says, earning an offended gasp from Tony.

“Blasphemy!” he says, shaking his head and Bucky rolls his eyes.

“You’re an atheist, fuck off,” Bucky tells him, letting out a loud squeak when Tony pokes him in the side. “I _will_ kick you,” he warns. Steve tested that _once_ and Bucky still feels bad for booting him in the gut but he _had_ warned him that he’d do that.

Tony laughs softly, “I’m joking, I’m not one of those jackasses who thinks my opinion of liking one over the other makes me superior or some shit. And I like Trek too, I just happened to get into Star Wars first. Blame Rhodey,” he says.

“Blame Steve for making me watch Star Trek over Star Wars first because he had a weird crush on Leonard Nimoy.” Steve always has had weird ass taste in people and frankly Sam might be the most normal person he’s attracted to and Sam is basically ten wasps in a human suit. So the worst. But if his personality wasn’t in there Bucky has to admit Sam’s pretty hot. Not that he will ever admit that out loud.

Tony runs his fingers through his hair and Bucky relaxes into him, closing his eyes as Tony continues to comb his hair with his fingers. He’s most of the way asleep when Tony speaks. “Can I make you an arm?” he asks and Bucky cracks an eye open.

“Hmm?” he asks, looking up at Tony.

“Don’t know if you’ve noticed, but you’re missing a whole limb. Can I make you a prosthetic?” he asks softly. That’s… not where he thought this would go but he thinks about it for a moment, nodding eventually. Tony leans down and presses a kiss to the top of his head, “thank you,” he murmurs, which is weird but maybe its because he knows Bucky’s self conscious about the arm. Has been since it happened, but like most things in his life Brock made it worse.


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Surprising amount of Pepper&Bucky bonding from here on out! Only felt natural, all things considered!

That Tony loves engineering is obvious in the way he moves, mumbling math things under his breath that Bucky mostly doesn’t catch. After three hours of sitting while Tony runs tests in his makeshift lab- surprisingly state of the art all things considered- Tony’s love of engineering is starting to weigh on him.

He’s mostly zoned out and has been for awhile when JARVIS, whom Bucky finds rather creepy with what he knows about the AI, speaks. “Mrs. Potts is here,” he tells Tony, who is pulled from his work with something of a jolt.

“Wouldn’t she be being watched like a hawk right now?” Bucky asks.

“So were you and you managed to get to me just fine,” Tony points out.

“Yeah, and I can’t leave without some insane story as to why I left to begin with,” he points out. Tony frowns, head tilted to the side a little like he’s trying to read into that and Bucky sighs. “Tony, I chose to be here. But the fact remains that if I didn’t I’d need a damn good story. How’s Pepper supposed to come and go?” he asks.

“You will find that I’m quite good at getting people to see what I want them to. And Tony, next time you decide to break out of prison could you _please_ issue a warning? I don’t like being woken up by police in my house at stupid hours in the morning,” Pepper tells him in a sharp tone.

Tony stares at her for a moment, seemingly shocked, before he drops his tools and rushes over, hugging her tightly. Pepper awkwardly pats him on the head looking largely unimpressed with this whole interaction. “Um. Hey Pepper,” Bucky says. “Nice to uh, see you again.”

She sighs, gently prying Tony away from her. “Don’t you look at me like that, I’m mad at you. Stocks are plummeting again, the Board is up my ass, so are the several police agencies, and I was about to buy a cat. Now I have to figure all that out because _you_ couldn’t give me a damn heads up! And _then_ you left the house you told me to go to and I had to track you down to this one! JARVIS wouldn’t even tell me where you were. You are a _pain_ in my ass, Tony. And hello Bucky, nice to see you again,” she says in a much more pleasant tone. “Everyone thinks your dead,” she adds and whoa, wait, _what_?

“Uh, well I’m definitely _not_ dead why the hell is that even a conclusion?” he asks. And why the hell hasn’t he looked this up?

“Tony, give him the damn WIFI password. What is wrong with you?” Pepper asks him, shaking her head.

“Well, his phone had to go and I haven’t gotten around to-” he starts but Pepper cuts him off.

“‘Haven’t gotten around’ my ass, you just want him to yourself. Well people can multitask so stop being an asshole and give the man access to the internet. What is this, the damn Dark Ages? Don’t let him do that, he likes attention too much and he is more than happy to be the center of it. You have to tell him to fuck off every once and awhile,” Pepper tells him.

“ _How am I dead_?” he asks. Which is the more _pressing_ question because hello! He’s presumed _deceased_.

“You went missing almost five days ago and you had potentially pertinent information about an escaped serial killer Bucky, its not hard to see why police think you’re dead,” Pepper says like this is a normal situation to be in and _no_ it is _not_.

“I have to call Steve to tell him I’m not fucking _dead_! Oh my god, he must be a mess,” he says, running a hand through his hair. Shit, missing is bad but ambiguous, it leaves room for hope but _dead_ is final.

Tony gives him a sympathetic look, “Bucky,” he starts but he cuts Tony off.

“You managed to kill a shit ton of people, some being _very_ high risk targets, and you went unnoticed for _twenty years_. You can figure out a fucking phone call,” he snaps.

Pepper looks between the two of them, eyes flicking back and forth before she nods a little, smiling to herself.

*

Natasha is keeping up with the news because of _course_ she’s keeping up with the news. She slept with a guy who ran off with a serial killer. Fuck being dead, guy clearly fell into some weird Harley Quinn/ Joker type shit. Might explain her thing for Bucky, she’s always had a thing for Harley Quinn. “You have bad taste in men,” Wanda tells her and yeah doesn’t she fucking know that.

“Look, he was respectable when we met,” she says in her defense.

“His main hobby was hanging out with a serial killer,” Wanda points out.

“We spend stupid amounts of time researching and talking about them so who was I to judge? From where I was standing he already went through a bunch of schooling and had a cool PhD thesis- better than the last one,” she points out.

Wanda gives her a _look_. “The last one liked to cosplay as the devil,” she says.

“You know what, leave Matt alone. He was a lawyer with his own practice and yeah maybe he loved Hellboy _way_ too much but that’s not too bad.” It’d been the whole ‘lets have kids’ thing that sent her packing. And also she can’t have kids and didn’t want to have that conversation so Bucky’s clear disinterest in anything but his thesis was a total plus to her. No talk of kids, not until he’s done with that and then she could beat feet like she’s done with every other relationship. She’s got baggage okay, and she’s not looking to share it with her One and Only. Mostly because she doesn’t believe a One and Only exists and also because she doesn’t feel the need for anyone to unlock her tragic backstory.

“You were the one who decided _Barnes_ was an improvement so you have no right to stick up for Matt,” Wanda says. “And any man who spends that much time dressed as the devil has something wrong with them,” she adds.

Natasha sighs and honestly Matt _better_ appreciate her wherever he is. “Hellboy isn’t the devil,” she mumbles, cursing herself for even _knowing_ as much about the damn character as she does. “Technically he’s the son of a witch and a demon, but not the devil.”

“I’ll be honest, I don’t care. So, what’s the news on Lover Boy?” she asks, walking over and sitting beside Natasha, shoving her face into her space and Natasha sighs.

“He’s presumed dead but I’m _sure_ it’s to draw him out of hiding. Rumor has it he’s attached to that best friend of his so if he finds out everyone thinks he’s dead there’s a good chance he’ll call. Easier to find him that way.” Its what she would do, if she were investigating.

“That won’t work, Stark’s a genius,” Wanda points out.

“It will if Bucky says something to indicate where they are. Doesn’t matter how smart Stark is if Bucky’s stupid. And anyone who’s worried people who care about them think they’re dead would be.” Though maybe not given that he _has_ shown an aptitude for intelligence. He managed to slip a bunch of cops watching him and somehow got to where ever he went while only ending up on camera twice. And he didn’t use a bus system either, which is curious. No cars went missing in any surrounding area, which makes things even _more_ curious but Natasha is sure he’s got his methods. Whatever they are she’s sure they’ll stay a mystery.

“My bets are still on Stark,” Wanda says.

Natasha snorts, “of course Stark will win it out, you said it already. He’s a genius. But that doesn’t mean Bucky won’t make things interesting in the meantime.” And she hopes he does if for no other reason than wanting to know _why_ the hell he seems to have taken off of his own free will. Sure Stark was good, damn good, at taking out his victims without leaving a mess but doing it while a bunch of cops are in the area with another person in the apartment across the hall? That seems like a situation that spells _everything_ going wrong even for someone as smart as Stark.

“You’re one dick away from sleeping with a serial killer,” Wanda tells her and Natasha wrinkles her nose, shoving her straight off the couch. She takes pleasure in Wanda’s loud yelp as she flails and falls off.

*

Jesus fucking Christ if Bucky turns up alive Sam is going to kill him himself. He isn’t violent by nature but Steve has nearly died like five times now thanks to panic attacks turned asthma attacks and _fuck_ Bucky for not thinking of him before doing whatever bullshit thing he did. Maybe Steve has faith enough in Bucky to think he’s been kidnapped but Bucky was right about one thing- Stark is nothing but a man, not some shadow in the dark capable of anything. If Bucky didn’t want to go Steve damn well would have heard the struggle. Its bad enough, obviously taking off on his own despite what Steve’s insisting, but to stay gone and not call anyone? Steve’s got problems, a _lot_ of them, and this isn’t fucking helping anyone.

Obviously he’s been presumed dead and Sam doesn’t know if that’s because Stark is dangerous and Bucky has information on him, or the police suspect they do, or because something else is going on. Not that he cares because this whole situation is taking a toll on Steve that shouldn’t need to happen. “Steve,” Sam murmurs, “for the record I think he’s okay.”

Steve looks up at him, glaring with red rimmed eyes. “I don’t need your pity,” he snaps, never one to let people feel bad for him but Sam sighs.

“Bucky empathizes with Stark in a way I doubt many do. I read his notes and I agree that Tony isn’t a psychopath, don’t at _all_ agree with his assessments of evil, but that’s not the issue here. Point is I don’t think Stark would kill someone when he’s spent so much of his life desperately searching for connections. Whatever relationship he has with Bucky is probably the only one he’s ever had where he hasn’t had to hide some part of himself.” That’s got to be a powerful motivator to want him around, Sam knows how hard it is to keep parts of yourself to yourself because of what other people might think. Yeah, not exactly being sure his parents would accept the whole bisexual thing is on a _whole_ other level than killing people for funsies but he doubts Stark discriminates. Bucky noted his absolute lack of guilt. Never mentioned the motive though, which is weird considering he implied that he knew what it was.

“He doesn’t have _any_ relationship with Bucky,” Steve snaps.

It takes patience for him to not yell at Steve to see the obvious but he manages. “Doesn’t matter how you see it, matters how _he_ sees it. Plus what little Bucky transcribed leaves a strong indication that Tony wouldn’t break his pattern without a damn good reason,” he adds. He’s not sure Bucky knowing too much about him counts as a reason. If it did Rhodes would be a target and while there’s no evidence to suggest he isn’t there isn’t anything to suggest he is either.

“Not wanting important information about him to get out is a damn good reason,” Steve points out but Sam shakes his head.

“He agreed to this, he _knew_ Bucky was going to write about it. That information was getting out one way or another and Stark was fine with that. I don’t think that’s it,” he says.

“Or he broke out before Bucky could say anything about anything,” Steve says but that’s a damn leap. He gets that he wants to see Bucky as some innocent victim but he’s not, he’s a whole person who’s half of what’s going on here and Sam is pretty fucking sure Bucky figured out something the cops didn’t and took off. Why that is, exactly, is anyone’s guess but Sam has a few opinions Steve wouldn’t like.

“I don’t think that’s it either. For all he knew Bucky already transcribed everything and handed it in to his thesis supervisor, which means all that information is available already. The fact that he hasn’t done that is more a coincidence than anything.” Unless Bucky purposefully didn’t transcribe all his notes given that all his tapes, which Steve and Sam are both able to confirm existed, are conveniently gone. Any evidence connecting Tony and Bucky is and that could be Stark’s computer skills or it could be Bucky trying to cover his ass for whatever reason.

Steve’s jaw clenches and he sighs. “I don’t know why those tapes would be missing. Its not like Bucky has anything to hide,” he says.

Unless he does, but Sam doesn’t say that. “Maybe he just stuck them somewhere for safekeeping and no one has found them yet. Guy does weird shit,” he says. It’s not wrong; he’s seen Bucky’s freak habits first hand. Hiding tapes for no reason isn’t totally off the table yet.

His words seem to give Steve an idea because he’s out of his bed in seconds, walking into Bucky’s now destroyed room. FBI combed over it at least twice more and after taking a bunch of pictures of evidence in its correct position they weren’t polite about it. Sam follows, mostly out of confusion, and finds Steve kneeling at a baseboard prying it off the wall. Sam goes to ask him what he’s doing but to his surprise it pops open and Steve pulls out a box. “Its where he keeps the chocolate he thinks I don’t know about,” he says and shakes the box. Sam isn’t completely sure its tapes rattling around in there but if he were to guess he’d say Steve found what no one else has.

*

Tony paces back and forth, “this feels like a trap,” he says. Not that it’ll work- Bucky doesn’t know where they are, and there’s no way anyone would be able to trace a call. But Bucky has been _insistent_ and he’s not easily deterred. Which Tony liked about him until it got inconvenient. Now he’s being a pain in his ass.

Pepper looks irritated about all this and shows it with an eye roll. “Oh hop off it Tony, what did you expect? There was going to be a point where this was going to happen, where he’d realize the weight of what he’s done, and he’d want to make contact. Say good bye. Even you had that,” she says like he’d be different somehow. They all know why and he disagrees. Pepper, if she so chose, could have visited in prison so that whole _thing_ was hardly a good bye. Not to her anyway, but to Rhodey it was. Its not like he handled the news with as much grace as Pepper but she already knew about his extra curricular activities.

“Well maybe he should have thought of that _before_ he came,” he mumbles and Pepper rolls her eyes.

“If you want this to work you need to give him some measure of trust. Not your strong suit, believe me I know, but he has already chosen to seek you out _and_ he chose to follow you here. _Clearly_ he doesn’t want to turn you in,” she says.

“Could be an elaborate set up. Use someone who I might have more trust in to lure me back out,” he says. Shitty plan if that’s it given that he wouldn’t be stupid enough to tell Bucky where he was going. Granted he did that for Bucky’s safety rather than his- on the off chance he _did_ get caught he wanted to give Bucky plausible deniability. Claiming some evil genius fucked up serial killer had some weird creepy obsession with you and snatched you isn’t really a hard sell. Especially when you have no idea where you are.

“How long did you stay at the previous house?” Pepper asks. “With Bucky,” she amends.

He shrugs, “day and a half, give or take.” Bucky had been asleep forever, and by the time they left it’d been a good while after he woke back up.

“This isn’t a set up, police would have nabbed you then. You were a damn sitting duck- no one is going to wait for you to move locations, follow you all the way there, then sit around for longer after you killed as many people as you did. They’d probably just shoot you dead,” Pepper says, waving a hand around.

She’s not wrong; his version of events make no logical sense. “And if Bucky gives up some detail that tells people where we are?” he asks.

“How’s he going to do that when _he_ doesn’t know where you are?” Pepper asks.

“I don’t know, maybe he’ll mention some rare squirrel that only exists in like… thirty square miles in this area.” Far fetched, but movies have had plots about it so.

“Does such a squirrel exist?” Pepper asks, exasperated.

“According to my research none of the species of flora or fauna in this area are unique to this area or this state,” JARVIS says like a fucking traitor.

“Who’s side are you on?” he asks the AI.

“Tracking is unlikely even with identifying details as the make and model of the car you used to drive here is among one of the most bought in America,” JARVIS says. Yeah, which is why he chose it. And the license plate belongs to a guy who died in 1967 so the cops can have good luck with that.

“Let him make a call, Tony. Because if you don’t its not going to end well for you. If you do you can certainly get out of whatever mess you land yourself in,” Pepper tells him. She’s not wrong about that either but still.

*

Bucky sits on the small porch overlooking the leaves. Its beautiful out here, he’ll give Tony that. That’s about all he’ll give him at the moment even though its unfair to judge him for decisions Bucky made. When the door behind him opens he doesn’t turn towards it, hoping Tony gets the hint but a tap on his shoulder has him looking over anyway. He’s surprised to find Pepper there with a glass of what he knows is alcohol as soon as the smell hits his nose. “I figured you could use this,” she tells him and he sigh.

“Does this ever get easier?” he asks. He shouldn’t have called anyway, he should have known Steve would just beg him to come home and then it’d end in a fight. The way he left things wasn’t good but it’s better than that.

Pepper sits in the chair beside his, kicking off her heels and curling her long legs up to her chest. “Not especially and Tony doesn’t make it easier. He’s so in his own head all the time and prying information out is like mining for gold,” she says, shaking her head.

Doesn’t Bucky know it. Mining for information gold is literally what got him into this mess. “Do you even _have_ friends? Because keeping a secret like this can’t possibly be make fostering relationships easy,” he says. God knows it was hard enough with Steve before all this and after? Hell, even if he went back after he found Tony that’s not something he ever would have told anyone and that would have weighed on him. That’s nowhere near the amount of secrets Pepper has had to keep so he just can’t see her having a large friend group.

She shakes her head. “I’m in regular contact with Rhodey but its difficult, when Tony comes up in conversation. Which he does, often, because we both have a long history with him. Rhodey doesn’t want to admit that he misses Tony, that he loves him, but he does and not having him around hurts. You don’t just lose a friendship of twenty five years or better and not feel anything about it but Rhodey will be damned if he doesn’t try at it.”

So the only other person she has is the one person Tony had been connected to before all this. “Ever considered maybe Tony takes up an unhealthy portion of your life?” he asks and Pepper laughs.

“Oh, its cute that you’re putting that degree in psychology to work when you should consider doing the therapy thing on yourself. He doesn’t take up less of your life,” she points out and Bucky sighs.

“I’ve always had shit taste in men,” he mumbles. His taste in women is exponentially better but he’s unsure if that’s because shitty women exist less, which is doubtful, or if his taste is just as shit in women but he notices it less because the ways they’re shitty are different, or if he just happens to have decent character judging skills but only with women. Either way his patterns of men versus women reveal a marked difference in the kinds of people he dates. Namely, he keeps dating the Tyler Durden’s of the world instead of finding a wholesome Roger from 101 Dalmatians.

Pepper laughs, “oh, me too. I gave up on dating forever ago; kind of thought I was in love with Tony for awhile but _refused_ to give into that creepy secretary-dates-her-boss thing, _then_ I found out he’s a serial killer. Needless to say love is not in my future.”

Shit, he hadn’t thought it was in his either but here he is shacking up- literally- with a serial killer. If he was asked five years ago about this he… was with Brock so he probably wouldn’t have had much of an opinion on who he’d end up with because he would have assumed he’d be with Brock. Its sad, he thinks, that Tony has proven himself considerably more loving than Brock ever had been given that, to Bucky’s knowledge, only one of them has ever killed people. But then Tony doesn’t seem fond of abuse even if he’s obviously no stranger to unhealthy relationship dynamics.

“At some point I gave up on love too, but here I am,” he murmurs. He takes a drink of whatever Pepper handed him and wrinkles his nose. Guess she likes her drinks strong.


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, I didn't mean to take this long to update but holy hell I was busy with homework D: Like a lot of it. But I edited most of the rest of this so! Yay!

Bucky’s curled in bed scrolling through his new phone mostly playing with settings because this thing is totally foreign to him when the bed dips at the other end. He looks over, blinking a few times before his eyes adjust to find Tony there. “What kind of freak looks at a phone in the dark with the brightness settings all the way up?” he asks.

“I want to burn my retinas,” Bucky tells him. “What do you want?” he asks and even with his eyes only half adjusted he can see the flash of hurt across Tony’s features. “I didn’t mean it like that. Come here,” he says, reaching out to him.

Tony happily takes the invitation, crawling over and throwing himself down beside Bucky. He makes himself at home curled into his side before he looks up at the phone, squinting at it. Bucky goes to save Tony’s eyes from the brightness by turning it down but he accidentally drops it on his face instead. He doesn’t expect Tony to start laughing but he’s a traitor so he does. He pulls the phone off Bucky’s face and taps the screen a few times before the brightness turns way down. “Do you need a tutorial on how to use this?” he asks and Bucky gives him an unimpressed look. “I thought the youth knew how to work technology,” he says like A, he’s old when he’s not. And B, like Bucky actually counts as youth.

“I don’t need a tutorial, I only have one arm and with only one hand to keep the phone up sometimes it slips,” he says.

“Mhm, I’ll keep your secret old man,” Tony says, snickering when Bucky takes his phone back from him. Old man, he can’t help having only one arm that whole thing was an accident.

“You’re so rude,” Bucky mumbles at him but Tony’s on his armless side so he can’t push him away. The traitor, he laughs at that too and Bucky wrinkles his nose at him.

*

When he wakes up he’s surprised to find Tony still curled into his side though he seems to have switched sides some time during the night. He’s also sleeping, which is weird all things considered but Bucky leaves him be. He’s noticed that Tony doesn’t sleep a whole hell of a lot so when he does he figures its best not to interrupt even though he really has to pee. He can hear someone moving around in the kitchen area and assumes its Pepper unless cops showed up and decided to start cooking. Which is possible, but weird.

He lays there for a long time, looking over Tony before he decides his need to pee surpasses Tony’s need for sleep and he shuffles away carefully. Tony doesn’t wake up as he moves so he figures he needs the sleep and takes off to the bathroom quietly. Tony doesn’t wake up while he’s in there either and the sounds from the kitchen haven’t made him stir. Bucky decides to leave him asleep to do see what Pepper’s up to and finds her where he expects her, frowning at the stove.

“You don’t know how to cook?” he asks and she sighs.

“I do, but not well. I live on take out,” she says.

He spies her attempt at eggs and decides that’s for the best. “I uh. I can do better than that,” he says and she relaxes some. Shit, and he thought he was bad at this. Pepper is worse. “Out of curiosity,” he says as he lifts the pan from the stove, “do you have any idea why Tony spontaneously turned himself in?”

Pepper looks surprised with the change in subject but goes with it. “No. I asked, but he got bitchy about it. Not exactly common for him contrary to popular belief- he’s actually pretty even tempered unless he’s pushed. Of course journalists tend to push every button he has,” she says more to herself than Bucky.

He’s aware of that, and that journalists do it on purpose to get a rise out of Tony. Even with the knowledge that he’s a serial killer the way he was treated by the public and the media was awful, especially regarding the abuse he suffered as a kid. Tony was a real fucking prick sometimes but he still didn’t earn that. Everything that’s come out around his hobby of killing people, well, that he _did_ earn regardless of how necessary he felt killing his victims was.

“Any idea why he got short with you? I asked once, but he didn’t get pissed off at me. You know him better than anyone though, you must have your theories as to why he reacted like that,” he says. He knows she does as soon as he says it too, but Pepper holds back for a moment.

“To be honest, I don’t know. I’ve seen the way he talks about people who abuse kids when cameras aren’t on him; I _know_ how he feels about the subject. I just don’t see what could possibly make him think giving that up is the right thing to do.” Yeah, Bucky will bet she’s seen sides of Tony that no one else has, probably not even him.

“Come on Pepper, I know you have more complicated thoughts than that,” he tells her. He goes to the fridge to hunt around for food and honestly how does Tony even _have_ food here? Fresh stuff too, so its not like its been here for awhile and he came back to it. He pulls eggs out of the fridge and gives the pan a look. Well, better than nothing he supposes.

Pepper watches him for a moment and makes a face when it becomes clear he’s not much better a cook than her. Which he so resents because he’s not _that_ bad at this okay. “I… honestly the only thing I could think of that would possibly deter Tony from killing people is a child, but that would probably only stop him from killing that _target_. That’s it, the short list of who I think could talk Tony out of serial killing and it doesn’t even make sense.”

Yeah, it doesn’t. Pepper’s right, it would probably only deter Tony from that particular target, not killing in general. And he doubts Tony consults kids before killing their parents even if more than one child of his victims agree that he was more savior than bogyman. “Think I could get him to tell me?” he asks and Pepper shrugs.

“Go head and try but I doubt it. Whatever his reason it didn’t last,” she points out.

“Jail didn’t last, killing people has yet to be seen,” he points out. Not that he’s had much time to kill anyone on the run even if he’s sure JARVIS has wrangled more than a few people that fit Tony’s tastes.

“I guess you make a point there,” she says. “But I doubt it’ll last. I just don’t see why he would have stopped anyway let alone turned himself in. _Why_ would he do that? Even if he stopped killing for whatever reason he had already gotten away with it, why turn himself in?” she asks, more baffled than anything.

Bucky hadn’t considered that those were two separate events but Pepper makes a point. Whatever made Tony stop isn’t necessarily the same thing that made him turn himself in. Huh. But that does little more than create more questions rather than clear anything up and something tells him Tony might not appreciate his cleverness this time and that only creates more questions too. He’s been fine with Bucky digging up his motive, personal by his standards or not, so what’s he protecting here? Bucky doesn’t think he’s protecting himself and he already knows about Pepper and JARVIS so he’s not covering for them so who or what _is_ he covering for?

“What the hell are you two doing in here?” Tony mumbles, appearing in the doorway looking sleepy and annoyed. He rubs his eyes, reminding Bucky strangely of a child but he refrains from saying that.

“Attempting to cook,” Pepper tells him. “And your boyfriend is awful at it.”

“Oh like you have room to talk,” he tells her, realizing maybe a bit late that he’s protested to the wrong thing. He considers protesting to the boyfriend thing but straight people are hard to read on this kind of thing, for all he knows it was a bad gay joke even if Pepper doesn’t seem the type.

Tony gives the stove a disdainful look. “Get out of the kitchen, both of you. You’re a damn disgrace,” he tells them, shooing them out fast.

They both go and Bucky’s pretty sure its because neither of them want to eat his attempts at cooking given that they’re aware Tony is much better with food. “Thank god,” Pepper mumbles and Bucky laughs.

*

Tony has banned them to the porch, offended with their attempts at food while he angrily mutters in Italian, reminding Bucky of an angry grandpa. Pepper looks about as properly scolded as he does as they watch him from outside. “Its rude to kick us out, we weren’t _that_ bad,” Bucky says. “I know absolutely worse cooks.” He’d say Sam but that would be an unfair judgment to his skills. He’s actually quite a good cook, its Steve that can burn water without even turning on a burner. Which is how they ended up eating Bucky’s sad attempts at food unless Sam cooked. Not that Bucky would ever give Sam the satisfaction of telling him he’s got skill.

“So do I but he takes offense to food being cooked badly,” Pepper says. “And always in Italian.”

“When he speaks Italian its like his voice is in italics,” he says and Pepper snorts and starts laughing unexpectedly.

She shakes her head at him. “You’re ridiculous. I can see why he likes you though, you’re not afraid of him. People always treated him differently, even before everyone knew he killed people. He finds value in people who actually see him.”

So he knows actually. Tony all but told him that’s why he chose Bucky out of a sea of people anyway. That and proof that he’s good at finding the right threads to pull. “He’s also rather fond of people who challenge him in some way. I don’t know _how_ I do that but I must. He flat out doesn’t talk to people who don’t challenge him.” Not on a repeat regular basis anyway. It’s probably why his friend list is two people long. Well, one person long now that Rhodey has bailed.

“Oh you challenge him in plenty of ways, trust me. Not being afraid to tell him what you want is a plus. He’ll walk all over you if you let him, not that he means it but his lack of self awareness of his own dominant personality traits has always annoyed me. You handle him well,” she says.

Yeah, Bucky’s not so sure about that but he’ll take the compliment regardless. “He do that often, talk over people?” he asks. He’s never done it with him, but he wonders if that’s because Bucky is interesting to him. Strange, considering they’re both used to being freak shows if for different reasons. He suspects they both found some kind of solace in each other because they hadn’t treated the other the way they normally get treated. Bucky is an oddity, a freak with weird interests and a disability while Tony is so next level fucked he’s an entire troupe of shows all in one mind. Maybe he was drawn to Bucky because he humanized that on some level.

Bucky knows he’s drawn to Tony because there’s never been a moment where he’s doubted him or thought him stupid or incapable. Attractive, when you’ve spent the better part of the last decade and a half being dismissed as incapable and later stupid, if people found out about Brock. He’s clearly not helpless looking given his height and somewhat natural muscled form. He’s not built, but he isn’t exactly noodle-y either and people assume that makes him a bad choice for a victim. It doesn’t, abuse can happen to anyone no matter how physically imposing they are. And most of what Brock did was toy with his mind anyway, which isn’t hard when you have low self confidence like Bucky had at the time. It’s not exactly higher now, but he feels less vulnerable now that he’s spent time reading on how abuse works. People joke that psychology majors study the subject to understand themselves but its true at least for him.

“All the time,” Pepper says, “especially if he’s got no respect for you. That’s hard to gage sometimes though. He hates stupidity, but what classes as stupidity to him doesn’t necessarily follow normative patterns.”

He happens to know that too. “Tony thinks differently than most,” Bucky says. And his thought patterns, while often contradictory, do make a kind of sense as far as how Tony views things. He still thinks in ways most don’t though, and this holds true in most every area of his life. His out of the box thinking is why his company is so successful and why his inventions were sought after.

“Suppose that’s not unusual for serial killers. Especially intelligence,” Pepper says but Bucky laughs.

“Hell _yeah_ it is. Serial killers used to have to showboat to get any attention. Killers like Tony, ones who are intelligent and manipulative, they’re usually the work of fiction. Bundy got away with killing as long as he did because the cops were fucking incompetent and he still managed to escape twice. Dahmer literally had a victim _returned_ to him because he told the cops the clearly drugged brown kid was his boyfriend and they were having a misunderstanding. Another victim had to escape before anyone thought to look into the guy despite people raising alarms for some time. Bruce McArthur got away with killing people for so long because his victims, like Dahmer’s, were brown men no one cared about. Despite people raising alarms for some time. Serial killers aren’t smarter than most, cops are stupid or people don’t usually care about the victims they choose to kill,” he says, shaking his head.

Pepper raises an eyebrow, “wow, that was a rant.”

Bucky sighs, “people treat serial killers like they’re boogymen- and I use _man_ purposefully- that are suave and manipulative, they trick the cops and torment the public. Spoiler alert, they aren’t. They’re people, and they do horrible things that they tend to get away with for some time, but its not because they’re powerful monsters who trick everyone around them. It’s usually because investigators, the public, or both don’t care to look at the evidence. People only tell themselves serial killers are powerful and manipulative because they don’t want to admit that they didn’t care enough about the victims to follow the evidence.”

And then the Steve’s of the world, as much as Bucky loves him, whine and cry to pay attention to the victims. But paying attention to the victims means paying attention to prostitutes, people of color, queer people, and other vulnerable groups that, under normal circumstances, people overlook. Bucky thinks that people who think along those lines, that the victims matter more than the killers, are pointing out the wrong thing.

Its not that the victims are more important, or that the killer is, its that killers tend to chose from classes of people that are overlooked and that _maybe_ if they want to change how killers function they should stop treating prostitutes like shit. But no one talks about the fact that victims tend to be targets because of misogyny, or racism, or something else. They just decry that serial killers are awful, we should remember the victims, and then ignore that there are vulnerable people likely to be victims now and maybe they should do something about that.

In that respect, choosing vulnerable people, Tony is different given that his targets weren’t at all on the fringes. And frankly the fact that he _happens_ to be intelligent and he _happens_ to be able to manipulate technology is likely the only reason he got away with his crimes the way he had. That, and his ability to manipulate information release. But most, if not all, serial killers lack those traits. Maybe Tony loathed people misusing their power, but he certainly made use of his ability to do the same.

“They want to ignore the responsibility they had in ensuring the killers were able to kill as long as they had, and killed as many as they had because they turned the other way,” Tony says. “Believe me, if people were right and I wanted a high body count I never would have killed Jasper Sitwell. I would have killed transient Mexican farm workers. Would have taken decades for anyone to notice a pattern if they ever noticed at all.”

“And the serial killers that actually _have_ tormented the public?” Pepper asks.

“Usually aided by the lack of technological advancement. It’d be hard to shoot people all over New York and taunt the cops Son of Sam style given the sheer amount of security everywhere. Tony got away with a _vast_ majority of what he did strictly _because_ he was capable of circumventing that,” Bucky points out.

“Yeah, easy to kill people in offices when you built the security systems,” Tony says. “Food’s ready by the way. And not whatever disgrace you two tried to pass off as something edible,” he mumbles.

Pepper frowns at him, probably because that’s a strange turn of topics but she leaves it. “I’m not sure you give serial killers enough credit,” she tells him as she walks by but Bucky shakes his head.

“I give them exactly as much credit as they earned. They aren’t some monster power myth a la Hannibal Lecter. They’re people, and they make human mistakes with human motivations even when they’re actions are horrific,” Bucky tells her.

“For the record, as a serial killer I’m inclined to agree with Bucky,” Tony throws out.

“Well according to him you’re unusual for a serial killer,” she says and Tony raises an eyebrow at him. “And your opinion doesn’t count, obviously you’d side your boyfriend so lets not act like you’re lacking in bias,” Pepper says, nose in the air.

So that earlier comment wasn’t a joke, he’d read Pepper right. He considers disputing her words, they aren’t really true but they aren’t untrue either, not that he knows how to feel about that exactly.

He shrugs and turns to Tony. “Serial killers aren’t usually extra intelligent. Smart sure, but no smarter than most average people and we all know that’s not true for you. In a lot of ways you _do_ fit the power monster serial killer myths we’ve built up. But like most serial killers you kill because there was a point in your life where you felt powerless, and you didn’t want to feel like that again. And I doubt you ever achieved feeling like you had any power at all.”

Given the look on Tony’s face he’s pretty sure he’s hit too close to home.

 


	14. Chapter 14

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Have fun with the anthropology section, I honestly have no clue if what I was trying to say got across but I edited it like 5 times so hopefully my point gets across. If not, have a fun anthropology lesson that Tony didn't understand either!

“Okay, I know this podcast has gone from talking about serial killers to talking about Tony Stark in particular but. The. Plot. Has. Thickened!” Natasha says, smacking her hand against the table between the words.

Wanda rolls her eyes at her and honestly she should shut up because she’s the one who woke her up at three thirty in the morning to tell her new news about the case broke. “Who knew Rogers would sell his best friend out,” she says but Natasha shakes her head.

“Oh no, he’s one hundred percent hiding something. Randomly remembering information? Bullshit, if he wasn’t covering Bucky’s ass for something he would have told the cops right away.” She doesn’t trust him as far as she can throw… actually no she could probably throw him pretty far, he’s a damn waif, but still. She doesn’t trust his version of events that amount to him seemingly remembering information out of nowhere and he still doesn’t seem to be implicating that Bucky is in charge of his own damn actions. And that isn’t even all the news- Natasha found new interesting things just before they started recording and she’s excited to share them with Wanda.

“Why would he hide information?” she asks and Natasha snorts.

“Because he doesn’t want to sell his childhood bestie out,” she says. “Also no one remembers information randomly out of nowhere that’s that specific.”

Wanda sighs, “yeah I guess. What’s the deal with the card thing though?” she asks, getting ahead of herself. Not exactly unusual in the way they do this podcast.

“For everyone who just got lost rumor has it Bucky snatched something Rogers reported looked like a credit card off his bedside table as the cops were raiding his room. Claimed he didn’t say anything _because_ he thought it was a credit card,” she says. “But thought it might be useful to know now that he’s missing.”

They consider that for a moment before Wanda talks. “So what do you think it was?” she asks. “Because it sure shit wasn’t a credit card or he wouldn’t have bothered to hide it. What would the cops want with a credit card?”

Good point. “I mean, I’d be inclined to snatch my card before cops picked it up too, but Steve said he seemed to purposefully grab it when no one was looking.”

“Except him, conveniently,” Wanda says.

“Inconveniently actually. Given that he gave the information to the cops. Which prompts the _why_ of the equation. Like I said, I don’t buy that he randomly remembered this piece of information and Bucky’s everything was wiped out for the last decade or so. I think this supposed card thing had something to do with it somehow.” She has no idea _how_ that would work, or if she’s on the right track with that but it’s a possibility. More reasonable than a credit card anyway given that Bucky more than likely wouldn’t hide grabbing it from anyone.

“Yeah guess that’s possible, and weird. I didn’t know that kind of thing was possible, erasing records like that,” Wanda says.

“Stark’s a tech genius, its not surprising that he’d figure out how to do it. But that had to have happened while he was escaping prison and he can’t do that and fuck with online records at the same time. Guy’s talented but that’s impossible,” she points out.

Wanda raises an eyebrow, “you think Bucky was wrong about the accomplice theory?” she asks. “Or do you think he _was_ the accomplice?”

Natasha snorts, “I mean, he can’t be the accomplice for everything- timeline doesn’t match that either. Unless children help out serial killers given the age difference between him and Stark. Potts seems to have an airtight alibi, almost like it was staged that way but she _is_ a genuinely busy person so it’s possible that’s a coincidence. Plus her timeline of events doesn’t always match Stark’s kills and they’re business partners, or they used to be, so its possible _that’s_ why a lot does line up. But I definitely think he has an accomplice, which isn’t something Bucky ruled out. Just that Stark hadn’t said anything.”

Wanda makes a noise of agreement. “Okay. So Bucky is potentially- probably in my opinion- hiding information from the cops. But that doesn’t explain why he’d run off. The hell is he getting out of this?” she asks.

That’s a good question and Natasha doesn’t know. But she has an idea on what _Stark_ is getting out of it. “I don’t know what’s up with Bucky but I have news on Stark,” she says and Wanda’s eyes light up.

“Well don’t leave me hanging,” she says after a moment.

“I was pausing for dramatic effect you ass,” she tells Wanda. “Now. Guy was found murdered, Brock Rumlow. That’s not really news and the guy was a total scum bag Nazi piece of shit anyway. What makes things interesting though is that he was _clearly_ stalking one Bucky Barnes- had pictures of him everywhere. Cops are pretty sure Tony killed him.”

Wanda’s eyebrows fly up. “Holy shit. Why the hell did you wait so long to tell me?” she asks and Natasha rolls her eyes.

“Unlike _some_ people I have self control and I don’t wake them up at ass o’clock in the morning. Also, for the drama. This is why I’m the organizer and you’re the researcher. Point is, I think Stark’s in love.” Wanda lets out a noise of disbelief and Natasha flips her off. “Don’t give me that! Its not the craziest thing you’ve ever heard.”

“Maybe not but come on, that’s a bit far fetched don’t you think?”

Not even in the slightest. “Come on, guy gets out and within twenty four hours- that’s the timeline we’re working with- he kills a guy who _happens_ to be stalking Bucky? Not only that but rumor has he and Bucky dated for awhile before things went south in the abusive way. Stands to reason that Tony killed him because he cares about Bucky,” she points out. “Love isn’t a stretch from that.”

“So he went from prison to this guy’s house?” Wanda asks and Natasha nods.

“Busy city too, risked a _lot_ of cameras for that, not to mention getting around cops and road blocks. No one caught him on camera anywhere, including in the damn building, but still. That’s a huge risk for no reason _unless_ it’s some fucked up show of love or affection. I mean, guy who is stalking Bucky turns up dead right after a serial killer gets lose who has a distinct connection to Bucky? That’s a pretty heavy set of coincidences.” It could be a total coincidence sure, the evidence hasn’t pointed any which way at the moment, but she doesn’t think it is.

“Do you think Bucky knows?” Wanda asks but Natasha shrugs.

“That’s debatable. I mean, he could if he’s keeping up with the case but we don’t know what kind of internet access he has. Presumably fabulous considering you know, living with a tech genius, but if Rogers’ theory is right then he’s captive so. Plus he was in questioning when the murder took place and news only dropped this morning around eleven. If Stark didn’t tell him he wouldn’t have known until the rest of us found out.”

Wanda considers that a moment. “So what do you think? Is Rogers right or no?” she asks.

Natasha rolls her eyes. “ _Hell_ no, Bucky obviously took off on his own. Again, Stark is good but he’s not supernatural Mike Meyers good, he would have left _some_ kind of evidence that he snatched Bucky. Its not like he had time to plan between driving to commit a murder then going and kidnapping Bucky. I don’t even think that time line matches up right.”

“I don’t know, Bucky’s disappearance wasn’t totally nailed down. It would be tight, but possible time wise,” Wanda says.

“Do you believe that or are you playing the devil’s advocate?” she asks.

Wanda lets out a soft huff. “Fine, mostly playing the devil’s advocate but come on. What kind of messed up person just takes off like that with a fucking _serial killer_?” she asks.

Good question, one no one will ever have a real answer to. “Probably someone just as messed up,” she says. “If in different ways.”

*

Bucky watches Tony toy around with his arm, which is weird all things considered. Not that Bucky minds because it looks cool, metal because according to Tony he though Bucky might appreciate him not trying to make the arm look human. That he might appreciate that his difference is on display as much as it was when there was no arm there at all. He does appreciate that actually, which he told Tony before he started fine-tuning the arm. In the meantime though, he has questions.

“Why’d you stop?” he asks, causing Tony to pause in his movement.

His eyes flick back up to Bucky before he returns to his work. “Well, don’t lose your cleverness now,” he murmurs and Bucky rolls his eyes.

“One, you were the one who limited my internet access when we first started out here _then_ tossed my damn phone. I can’t leave here because the whole fucking country, and potentially the world, is looking for me and I’m still half lost on how to use my new phone. Give me a damn break here. Also we’ve been together for a bit, I thought maybe I earned a little trust,” he adds softly. Might as well hit Tony where it hurts metaphorically. He’s seen the way he acts with Pepper, he craves connection, trust. Being who he is doesn’t inspire anyone to trust him and truthfully Bucky _has_ put a lot of trust in him thus far.

Tony lets out a soft sigh. “That’s not my story to tell,” he murmurs and Bucky frowns. Not the angry reaction Pepper had warned him of, but sure shit not the one he expected either.

“You were the one who chose to stop killing and turn yourself in, how’s that not your story?” he asks.

“‘Choice’ isn’t the word I’d use,” Tony says and um, _what_?

“You know you aren’t making any sense, right?” he asks.

Finally he gets a dirty look, probably a precursor to Pepper’s warnings of a bad reaction, before turning back to his work. “There’s no reason for you to care anymore anyway, its not like you’ll be finishing your thesis,” he points out.

He doesn’t think Tony meant for that to be insulting but it stings nonetheless. “No need to be an asshole about it,” he snaps. “You aren’t the only one who gave up your whole damn life but you at least got the benefit of having all the information. I’m just winging it here.” He hadn’t even considered his PhD and fuck, there goes another thing he worked hard for _gone_.

“Bucky,” Tony murmurs and he gives him a dirty look.

“Just leave it,” he mumbles. This is his own problem anyway- he made his bed, now he has to lie in it.

*

Bucky is sitting on the porch admiring the leaves as best he can when Pepper finds him. “Nice arm,” she says and he sighs.

“Thanks,” he murmurs, not interested in a conversation about it right now.

She sits down beside him and for a long moment they sit in silence. “Either get used to Tony taking up so much of your life or go,” she tells him eventually. The harsh words contrast with her soft tone and he frowns, looking over at her.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

Pepper rolls her eyes at him. “Don’t play stupid Bucky, we both know full well that you’re very intelligent. Its hard, the way Tony eats up so much of the lives of the people around him, but you chose this. So either get used to it or go,” she repeats.

He turns away to look back at the leaves. Pepper isn’t wrong but he thinks he’s earned the right to mourn the life he’s lost and all the things in it. He spent a long time pulling himself up this far and ruined it all; of his own free will of course, in the matter of a few hours. Tony isn’t responsible for Bucky’s decisions obviously, but he is the reason Bucky made them and sometimes its hard to look at him without remembering Steve yelling at him to come home until Sam finally took the phone and threatened to kill him. That probably caused a fight or ten but if the situations were reversed Bucky would have threatened to kill Sam a whole lot sooner than that phone call. He’s entitled to that, Bucky thinks, and that’s all the credit Sam will get from him.

“That what you did? Just accepted that you’d never have a life outside of Tony?” he asks and Pepper gives him a _shrewd_ look. There’s a lot going on in her mind, he can tell, so when she finally speaks he knows it’ll count for something.

“You think you could have just walked away? That he wouldn’t have followed you like the ghost of Christmas past lingering over everything you did? You wouldn’t. Rhodey turned his back on Tony a long time ago and his presence is still there, always present no matter what he does. He frequently gets questioned on how he didn’t know, why he didn’t see it. So do I. People who worked with Tony both directly and indirectly get questioned on what it was like to work for a serial killer. You don’t _get_ the option of escape with him. The moment you reached out you were bound to end up here one way or another, tangled in his web. Even if you walked away nothing you’d ever do would be free of Tony Stark. This is what you chose, what I did, and what a lot of other people did too whether or not we wanted the results,” she tells him.

She leaves him with that, lapsing back into silence as they watch the sun fall below the horizon. Eventually it’s dark enough that they both go back inside and while Pepper goes to dig around in the kitchen, presumably for leftovers that Tony made, he goes to find Tony.

As expected Bucky finds him in the lab fucking around with something he doesn’t understand. He looks up when he sees Bucky and pauses before returning to his work. It’s a testament, Bucky thinks, to how well he knows Tony that he knows he isn’t being ignored. It’s just that Tony’s letting him make the first move. “There’s a debate, in the field of anthropology, about looking,” he says and Tony frowns.

“Looking?” he asks, eyes back on Bucky even though his head is tilted towards his work. He looks confused not that Bucky expected him to know what the hell he’s talking about.

He walks closer, leaning on the table’s edge close to Tony. He can see the way Tony reacts, the way he wants to move closer but he doesn’t. “Yeah, looking. Early anthropology revolved around going to other cultures and mostly judging their practices without ever putting them in context. Arm chair anthropology, it was called.”

“Racist,” Tony says, correctly recognizing the link to colonial assumptions about other cultures.

“Yes. The term for it is ethnocentric- the assumption that your own cultural beliefs are superior to that of another culture. What came out of that was realizing that people act in certain ways because of the context in which they’re raised. If we were to observe other cultures we needed to acknowledge the context of the beliefs within those cultures rather than judging them through the lens of the culture we come from. That’s what would bring a greater understanding of culture as a whole,” he says.

Tony frowns, “okay?” he asks more than states, clearly still confused.

“The debate, about looking, arises out of notion that anthropology often treats other cultures- usually the cultures of people of color- like freak shows. Especially in early anthropology what we did was use other people’s beliefs as some kind of entertainment for ourselves, looking in on what’s strange and different to satisfy a curiosity that came from a pretty dark place.”

“Uh, okay. Great anthropology lesson, what’s the point?” Tony asks and Bucky laughs a little.

“The point is that is that when we look at things, serial killers for example, we tend to divorce them from their contexts- turn them into a modern freak show that we tell ourselves isn’t an obsession with violence to make ourselves feel superior,” he says and Tony tilts his head to the side.

“So the point of this lesson is that people armchair judge serial killers?” he asks, frowning.

The connection between armchair anthropology and the way people treat serial killers is there inasmuch as the way people look in at and judge them, though the racism that permitted early anthropology obviously isn’t present with the judgment of serial killers. But that’s not the point.

“Yes, but the point is that when we judge things we bring or own experiences with us, and in doing that we tend to lose the context of other people. As you know good science doesn’t do that, or at least acknowledges the limitations of objectivity. When I started talking to you the whole point was to put you in context, to understand you in a way no one else does obviously. You wouldn’t _believe_ the amount of shitty books and news articles I read about you from people looking from a safe place, judging you without ever considering the implications of looking at you to begin with.”

Tony squints, clearly working to understand what he’s saying and failing. “Um. I’m not a culture?” he says eventually and Bucky laughs.

“No, you’re the subject a culture is looking in at and we’re judging you through the scope of our own beliefs. When we met you told me that people only cared that you killed people when they were from America. The implication was that you were blameless for the lives of the people killed by your weapons, and the only reason people didn’t care about that is because they decided those lives were the cost of supporting the US military and its agenda. You’re not wrong in that. But you missed the part where everyone chose to look at you anyway, and in a way that not only removed you from the context of your actions, but removed them from the context of what looking at you says about _them_ ,” he tells Tony.

He frowns again, eyebrows drawing together as he tries to put together Bucky’s meaning. “Is this a really long winded way of saying when you look into the darkness it looks into you?” he asks and Bucky shakes his head, laughing,

“Don’t be an asshole,” he says, reaching out and wrapping an arm around Tony’s waist. He allows Bucky to pull him in, tentatively laying his hands on Bucky’s chest. “What I’m saying is that _I_ chose to look, and I did so knowing what that meant. I know you committed horrific crimes, acknowledged that interest in you was because I want to know what that violence looks like up close. To see why you would be pushed to do something like that. The consequences of that, my looking, are something I accepted when I chose you,” he murmurs.

Tony smiles up at him, wrapping his arms around Bucky’s neck. “I think I could have got that without the anthropology lesson,” he says and Bucky wrinkles his nose at him.

“Could not, it was necessary for context,” he says.

“I love you, but that was incoherent babbling. Adorable, but ultimately meaningless,” he says though its not harsh.

“Don’t be rude! I was just trying to explain where the whole looking concept came from and why it applied to you,” he says. “It wasn’t incoherent babbling,” he mumbles.

Tony bushes his fingers along Bucky’s cheek. “If you say so,” he murmurs.

Still rude, but Bucky lets it pass in favor of leaning down and kissing Tony. He seems surprised by it when he shouldn’t be. It takes him a moment but he relaxes into it, kissing Bucky back softly and with a surprising amount of intimacy. When Bucky pulls away Tony makes a noise of protest and Bucky laughs. “Stop it, there’s plenty of time for kisses. And I love you too, otherwise I wouldn’t be here,” he tells him.

Tony looks delighted with this, grinning wide as he leans up to kiss him again.

 


	15. Chapter 15

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Last chapter and final pieces to the puzzle, y'all! Technically there's more background stuff going on, but I mostly left it out on account of wanting to end it more on a fluffy note than a technical one.
> 
> Anyway, thanks for sticking by through this Rough Boi and hopefully y'all like it!

Bucky wakes up with Tony curled around him, head on his chest. Its sweet if a little uncomfortable but he leaves it. Tony _did_ spend five years in prison and that couldn’t have been fun. He grabs his phone to screw around with it until Tony wakes up and decides to check the news. Might as well, there’s probably something new someone printed about Tony however inaccurate its bound to be.

He’s surprised to find Steve working with the cops, but not much all things considered. And he didn’t even tell the full truth. He knew damn well that Bucky was hiding something from day one and chose to keep that to himself even if he’s trying to go back on it now. What _does_ surprise him is the death, or more accurate _murder_ , of Brock Rumlow. The details aren’t listed but the implication is that the murder was brutal, but what surprises Bucky is that _Tony_ is a suspect. The timeline, as Bucky works it out in his head, matches up if only barely. He would have only gotten to the house Bucky found him in a day and a half before, assuming he did kill Rumlow, but that’s more than enough time for him to have gotten to where he and Bucky met up.

The reason for the connection, though, surprises him more than Tony being a suspect. Seems clear to the cops that Brock was stalking him, which does little more than make him feel scummy. “Hey,” Tony murmurs, “what’s wrong?” he asks sleepily.

Bucky turns to face him, shifting a little so he can see Tony’s face better. “You killed Brock,” he says. He doesn’t need to ask.

“Yeah. Guy was a fucking scum bag,” he says, shaking his head in disgust. They agree on that. Tony frowns though, stretching himself out before sitting up a little. “You’re Jewish right, you’ve mentioned that multiple times- that’s not a detail I inexplicably made up?”

“Yeah, I’m Jewish. Is that relevant?” he asks and Tony mostly looks more confused.

“You know Rumlow was a _Nazi_ right? How the fuck’s a Jew end up with someone like that?” he asks.

Right. Bucky clenches his jaw, looking away for a moment. “Its not like he had ‘white nationalist’ written on his forehead. And I don’t have Jewish written on mine.”

“By the time you found out you were already in too deep,” Tony murmurs, correctly putting that together. “Well that’s fucked up. Wouldn’t have assumed a Nazi would have any interest in keeping you around though,” he says, shaking his head, disgust high on his features.

Maybe not, Bucky doesn’t know much or care to know much about Nazi culture. But for Brock in particular it was a great way to torment Bucky, cost to his own belief system be damned. But Brock is still human however disgusting he was so Bucky tries to feel some kind of sympathy for him; some kind of disgust in what Tony did to him. What he finds is less sympathy and more a sick sense of relief that he’ll never have to deal with Brock or anything else to do with him ever again. Since he was apparently stalking him. “Thank you,” he says to Tony, surprising them both with his reaction.

“I uh… thought maybe you’d have moral qualms with that. I don’t, even if he wasn’t an abuser Nazis deserve to die anyway,” he says lightly, definitively.

He should have some kind of moral qualms with that but he can’t bring himself to feel anything but relief, happiness. Bucky shrugs, “he got what was coming to him.”

Tony leans into him, “yes he did.”

*

Pepper’s ability to not get implicated in crimes impresses Bucky, especially given that she’s convinced everyone else too. “She’s a woman,” Tony says and Bucky frowns.

“Relevance?” he asks as he looks up from the news article detailing how Pepper couldn’t have been involved with any of Tony’s crimes. Its not wrong given that she didn’t participate in the murders, but everything else around that has her touch to it. Including a pretty impressive campaign to make Tony the quirky genius who doesn’t understand social cues rather than the clearly fucked up guy who probably kills people in his spare time. Pepper’s got a gift for marketing.

“My murders were typically quite brutal- people don’t think women are capable of that kind of violence,” he points out.

Oh, right, that makes sense even if it also makes no sense at all. “People are fucking idiots, have they not heard of Dalphine LaLaurie?” Tony frowns and Bucky sighs. “Real fucked up, known for torturing and killing her slaves,” he says.

Tony wrinkles his nose, “you didn’t need to go further than ‘slaves’ to convince me,” he says. “Still, people think women are too… gentle, I guess, to brutally murder people. Or too squeamish. Saves Pepper a lot of work in proving her innocence when people aren’t inclined to assume she’d be capable of acting that way anyway.”

Saved by sexism, that’s a new angle. “The idea of women being squeamish at the sight of blood baffles me. People know what they do every month, right?”

“Turn into werewolves? Well kept secret, they don’t want the church finding out. Look what happened to the witches,” Tony says and Bucky snorts and starts laughing.

“Yeah, okay. Point is a proper investigation has to have her implicated somewhere, I’m surprised she managed to work around all that,” he says.

Tony shrugs, “she always was talented at marketing. Guess whatever image she made for herself in the interrogation room stuck.”

Too bad she’s gone, headed back to deal with company details given that once again Stark Industries is suffering for being attached to the ‘Stark’ part of the industries. Bucky would have loved to figure out how the hell she made herself look so unappealing as a suspect. She had to have done _something_ to earn that. “Too bad, I could have used tips,” he says, leaning into Tony.

“You seemed to do fine,” Tony murmurs, pressing a kiss into his hair. “You got out.”

“Barely. That Coulson prick seemed to think I was involved.” He isn’t wrong but still.

“Stupid, considering no one- Pepper included- knew what I was up to. And you didn’t even do anything except take a donation you didn’t even get time to use. I’ll make up for that,” Tony tells him, wrapping an arm around his waist.

“You want to make stuff to up to me you can pay off Steve’s hospital bills,” he says. “Poor bastard is allergic to inside and outside and his body keeps trying to kill him. He should have been born in Canada.” At least they have healthcare there. Here it costs eight thousand dollars for a doctor to consider sticking a band aid on you.

“Good to know. But since we’re on the subject of misdirection so-to-speak where do you want to go? We can’t hang out here forever so where to next?” he asks.

“Not Ohio or Alabama,” Bucky says immediately and Tony laughs.

“So helpful,” he teases.

*

Bucky’s going over Tony’s plans for leaving here considering he has more up to date knowledge of the roads while he fucks around in the lab. Turns out JARVIS is pretty meticulous in noting what roads have cameras where though and Bucky’s research into fact checking has mostly done nothing but prove JARVIS right. Always good to make sure though, he guesses. “Bucky,” JARVIS says, surprising him by addressing him randomly. “Tony would like to see you in the lab.”

“You should wear a bell or something,” Bucky mumbles at the AI. He needs an early JARVIS warning system to avoid being frightened.

“I am a non corporeal being,” JARVIS tells him. “I have nothing to wear a bell on.”

Bucky rolls his eyes at the AI’s stupid joke, or at least Bucky thinks JARVIS is joking. He’s better at it with Tony but there’s an established comfort there that doesn’t exist with him. He makes his way to the lab though, locating Tony fairly easily and going to him readily when he reaches out. “I’m happy to see that you came around,” Tony murmurs and Bucky smiles.

“I was always going to get here,” he says, kissing Tony softly. “But that’s not why you called me down here.”

Tony sighs, tensing a little before he turns to the screen, arm still wrapped around his waist. “You asked why I stopped,” he says softly and Bucky’s eyebrows fly up. “Don’t look so surprised, your right that you’ve gained the right to a little trust. And its not like you’ve got anyone to tell anyway. But I’d appreciate it if you kept this from Pepper.”

That’s weird, with all they share but okay. “Sure. But is there a reason for that? You’re not shy in keeping most anything from Pepper,” he points out.

“I’ll explain as I go,” he says, hitting a button on the computer and the face of a young teen pops up. Adorable kid, but Bucky doesn’t see how he’s relevant. “His name’s Peter Parker. His mother was a scientist, brilliant, and I’ve always found intelligence attractive. Nothing was ever meant to come of it obviously, and she met the guy she married shorty after. I had no idea he existed until almost six years ago,” he says and holy _shit_.

“You have a _kid_?” he asks and Tony sighs.

“Yeah. Smart too, apple didn’t fall too far from the tree. He tracked me down through an internship program at SI partially because I recognized his last name. Mary and Richard were at the top of their respective fields before they died, I figured if their kid had half the merit they did he’d be impressive. I didn’t think he was _mine_ when I approved him for the program. Kind of always wanted a kid, but…” he trails off but Bucky knows what he means.

“With you being who you are, probably not a good plan,” he says.

Tony nods. “Exactly. But Peter already had a parental figure, his aunt May, so its not like I couldn’t take the kid under my wing a little without fucking his entire life up.”

“You tried to have your cake and eat it too. I assume that didn’t end well.”

“Never does. I don’t even know how he found out, didn’t really bother asking on account of being so surprised. Obviously he didn’t react well and to make _that_ long story short I agreed to turn myself in,” he says.

“Out of a clear respect for Peter,” Bucky adds and Tony lets out a soft sigh.

“Yeah,” he murmurs. Strange, Bucky thinks, that Pepper’s theory was right. Tony _did_ stop because of a kid; she just didn’t know it was _his_ kid rather than the child of some other target.

“What’s with the escape?” he asks and Tony laughs, leaning into him some.

“I told him I’d go to prison and stop killing people, I didn’t say I’d _stay_ there,” he says.

Bucky snorts, “not specifying the fine print, really?” he asks.

Tony shrugs, “I’m a business man, fucking people over with fine print is what we do. And I mostly kept my promise anyway, minus Brock but Peter’s social media tells me he’s not fond of Nazis so he might forgive me on that one. Aside from him I intend to keep my promise anyway.”

“Was he actually stalking me, Brock?” he asks. He never noticed if he was and its not like he’s lacking observation skills.

“Hey, its okay,” Tony murmurs. “I can assure, he’s quite dead. But yes. He suspected your feelings for me before you did, actually. Kept some detailed diaries that were mostly ramblings of a fucked up piece of shit but there were plenty of details about you in there so I burned them. No sense in the cops getting ahold of the information. Or anyone else. I’m sure Rumlow’s Nazi friends weren’t fond of you.”

Probably not, not that Bucky would know. Most of his time with Brock was spent with only Brock. Didn’t sit well with Steve, who never did like Brock and refused to be pushed out by him. For a small wheezy little fuck he’s got a lot of fight. “Whatever. They can all go dive off a cliff too for all I care,” he mumbles.

“They’ve earned worse than that. So, that’s why I turned myself in with no one on my trail and seemingly no risk of getting caught. There’s always a risk, but given how good I was at releasing the right kinds of distracting information I doubt it would have caught up with me. The few times people got too close I managed to distract them too.”

Yeah, Bucky’s sure. Even if JARVIS probably did more of the legwork than Tony. Which frankly makes the AI far more frightening than Tony is. A thought occurs to him though and Tony clearly picks up on it because he raises an eyebrow. “You’re pretty good at misdirection,” he points out and Tony nods.

“Yeah. Your point?”

Bucky laughs, “you moron, you keep trying to escape people who are pissed off you killed soccer moms and successful lawyers and seemingly good fathers. People want you caught because they don’t sympathize with you. Just do what you did with the victims and distract the public with your motive. No one’s going to care about the hot shot lawyer with the whole world ahead of him when they know he regularly abused his sister’s kids when she wasn’t around, and no one’s going to care about the local PTA mom when they find out she’s been poisoning her kids for attention. You’ll have done a public service in the eyes of the American public.”

Funny, he thinks, that no one considers the implications of _that_ either; the way people will overlook the horrific actions of one person if the person they’ve done something terrible to was ‘worse.’ But everyone has some group of people they feel no pity for and everyone in Tony’s victim pool fits that bill for almost the entire country. Minus abusers, Bucky is sure but even they have a strange amount of dissonance between their actions and the actions of other abusers. Tony shifts uncomfortably though and Bucky raises an eyebrow. “What’s wrong, hmm?” he asks softly.

Tony sighs. “I wasn’t lying when I said motive was personal,” he says.

“One personal detail for the American public off your back? Not a bad trade off when all you’ve got to worry about is idiot police who may very well start investigating all the _other_ crimes you technically caught wind of,” he points out. “It’s a great way to save your ass. Think about it.”

_One Year Later_

Pepper pokes at the food in front of her and sighs, “this Italian food is sad,” she mumbles and Bucky laughs.

“Well, you’re welcome to come back,” he tells her. “Honestly I’ve never been so well fed.” Tony loves to cook too, spends a lot of time doing it and Bucky’s happy to taste test. He’s had to start jogging to avoid gaining a bunch of weight though Tony has already stated that he wouldn’t mind if he did put on weight. More weight, actually, but he probably could have used the first few pounds he put on. Besides, jogging is a hobby and he’s been a little short on those for some time.

“Oh, Tony’s food is so good,” she says wistfully. “How is he? Cooped up?” she asks but Bucky shakes his head.

“He’s doing well all things considered. He’s still bored a lot but you know how he is. Sometimes he goes on walks at night to get out and I think that’s probably good for him.” Sure, the public is off his ass, he’d been right about no one really caring about his victims once they learned of their crimes, but the police are still after him.

Pepper nods. “Well, that’s not too bad. I was half expecting for him to show up in Times Square to announce a police chase by now. He’s so dramatic; he’d probably do it. And he’s known for doing stupid things when bored,” she says.

Ha, yeah, Bucky knows. “I’ve got him mostly under control,” he says. “And we just got a cat so he’s distracted with her for the time being. I pulled her out from under a dumpster and she’s not too trusting so he’s attempting to get the cat to like him.” He’s more successful at it than Bucky is despite being the one to drag the cat’s ass back home. But it serves as a good distraction for Tony and he’s got the attention span of a brain damaged flea, he needs the stimulation.

“You sure that’s a good idea? The cat?” Pepper asks and Bucky rolls his eyes.

“He kills people, not animals. Cat’s fine. Bit of an asshole, but fine. How’s Rhodey?” he asks and Pepper sighs.

“Stressed with the new promotion, but fine otherwise,” she says.

“Not stressed with the wedding planning?” he asks, surprised.

Pepper laughs, “as _if_ he’s doing the wedding planning. That’s my thing and I already know what he wants out of it anyway, might as well let him focus on work,” she says primly.

“Uh huh. Is this just because you’re a bit of a control freak?” he asks, earning an offended noise out of Pepper.

“ _No_ ,” she lies.

*

Tony looks at him over the back of the couch. “Peter got into MIT,” he says happily.

Bucky grins, “that’s awesome. Did he decide to go there, or did he just get in?” he asks.

“He hasn’t decided on which school to go to yet. And he’s dating some asshole named ‘Flash.’ You should see this kid, total nerd,” he says, shaking his head.

“To be fair, Peter’s kind of nerdy too,” he points out but Tony wrinkles his nose.

“In a cute way, but this Flash guy is more revenge of the nerds kind of nerd,” he says. Bucky walks over and plucks the phone from Tony’s hand to get a look at this Flash kid. He’s utterly unremarkable in a Mathletes jacket with an arm around Peter’s shoulders.

“Kid looks fine,” Bucky says.

Tony makes an offended noise, grabbing his phone back. “You’re fired, you suck at being on my side,” he says.

“Your side is dumb in this case and Peter looks happy. Let the kid live. Where’s the cat?” he asks, noting that she’s not glued to Tony the way she normally is.

He sighs, “took off as soon as you walked in. She doesn’t like you much,” he says like Bucky isn’t already aware of that.

“Well I rescued her furry ass, she should learn to appreciate,” he mumbles.

 

**Author's Note:**

> [My writing Tumblr](https://tenspencerriedplease.tumblr.com/)


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